Framing a Six-Day Cause List and Reading a Pendency Figure Correctly
A Civil Judge (Junior Division) has six sitting days, Monday to Saturday, and must list exactly one of six matters each day. The matters are: M1, a bail application of an undertrial in custody for fourteen months, the sixty-day period for investigation expiring on Wednesday; M2, a 2019 murder trial in which PW-1 is an outstation witness available only on Monday; M3, the production of a person arrested at 9 a.m. on Saturday; M4, a settlement matter that must be listed on Friday, the day fixed for the pre-Lok Adalat sitting; M5, a partition suit filed by a plaintiff aged 78; and M6, an ordinary money suit defended by a bank. The office notes that M5 must be listed before M6, and that no matter may be listed on a day excluded by its own constraint. Separately, the district's civil pendency on 1 January is 3,300 cases across four courts, with a monthly institution of 900 cases and a monthly disposal of 1,020 cases at full strength; one court remains vacant for the first three months of the year.
1. Prepare the cause list for the week. What happens if Tuesday is declared a local holiday after the list is published?
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The fixed points must be placed first. M2 goes to Monday, because the outstation witness is available only that day. M4 goes to Friday, the pre-Lok Adalat sitting. M3 goes to Saturday, since a person arrested that morning must be produced before the court the same day. M1 goes to Wednesday, the last day of the sixty-day period, because a bail application of that kind cannot be deferred beyond the date on which the period expires.
That leaves Tuesday and Thursday for M5 and M6, and the direction that M5 precede M6 fixes the order: M5 on Tuesday, M6 on Thursday. The list is Monday M2, Tuesday M5, Wednesday M1, Thursday M6, Friday M4, Saturday M3, and it is the only arrangement that satisfies every constraint.
If Tuesday is declared a holiday, the list cannot simply be shifted. M1 must still be heard on Wednesday and M3 on Saturday, and M2 can be heard only on Monday, so M5 must take Thursday. M6 then has no day left in the week. The correct response is not to list M5 and M6 together, nor to list M6 on the holiday. The senior citizen priority is a direction of policy, not a statutory rule that can displace the production of an arrested person or the bail application. The court should record that M6 stands adjourned to the next working day, inform the bank's counsel, and note that M5 retains its priority over it.
2. Compute the civil pendency on 31 December and the further time needed to bring it below 2,400 cases.
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Full-strength monthly disposal is 1,020 cases across four courts, which is 255 cases per court per month.
The vacancy. For the first three months only three courts sit, so disposal in each of those months is 3 × 255 = 765, not 1,020. The loss is 255 per month, or 765 for the quarter.
The year. Disposal for twelve months is (765 × 3) + (1,020 × 9) = 2,295 + 9,180 = 11,475. Institution for twelve months is 900 × 12 = 10,800. The net reduction is 11,475 − 10,800 = 675 cases.
Pendency on 31 December. 3,300 − 675 = 2,625 cases.
Further time. Once the vacancy ends, the net monthly reduction is 1,020 − 900 = 120 cases. To go from 2,625 to 2,400 requires 225 cases, and 225 ÷ 120 = 1.875 months. Since a target is met only at the end of a month in which the figure falls below it, the court needs two more months, at the end of which pendency is 2,625 − 240 = 2,385 cases, comfortably below 2,400.
The common errors to avoid are counting twelve full-strength months, treating the vacancy as a one-off subtraction of 255 rather than a loss in each of three months, and giving 1.9 months as an answer when the question is when the figure actually crosses the threshold.
3. The District Judge says: 'Disposals have risen by 10 per cent and institutions by 20 per cent, so pendency must have risen.' Evaluate the inference.
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The inference does not follow. What matters is the absolute figure, not the percentage change. A percentage is calculated on a base, and the two bases are different.
Using the figures above, a 10 per cent rise in disposal takes 1,020 to 1,122, and a 20 per cent rise in institution takes 900 to 1,080. Disposal still exceeds institution by 42 cases a month, so pendency falls, not rises, even though the institution grew twice as fast in percentage terms. The apparent paradox arises because 10 per cent of a larger base can exceed 20 per cent of a smaller one.
The District Judge's statement confuses percentage change with change in the number of cases. The correct comparison is between the absolute additions, and the correct conclusion depends on the actual base values. The percentage rates are useful only for describing workload growth, not for predicting the direction of pendency.
A related trap is the difference between percentage points and per cent. If the disposal rate moves from 32 per cent to 40 per cent of institution, that is a rise of eight percentage points, and a rise of 25 per cent in the rate. The two expressions are not interchangeable, and a judicial officer reviewing monthly statistics should insist that the office report both the absolute numbers and the rates.