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Report No. 14

27. Courts of Munsifs.-

At the lowest rung in the hierarchy of the regular civil courts are courts presided over by Munsifs with jurisdiction to try regular suits valued upto Rs. 2000 and small cause suits valued upto Rs. 100. The number of original and small cause suits instituted, disposed of and pending in the courts of Munsifs in the years 1954 to 1956 is set down below (Table No. 9). Curiously, the progressive increase in the number of officers has resulted in a fall in disposals. The fact that some of them are called upon to do criminal work also may partly account for this fall.

Table No. 9

		Civil Suits					Small Cause Suits
Year	No. of Officers	Pending at the beginning of the year	Institutions		Balance		Pending at the beginning of the year	Institutions
					Below one year	Over one year
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
1954	60	12267	25043	25110	9755	2445	936	3644
1955	61	12200	25059	24708	9790	2761	798	3093
1956	62	12551	25299	24132	10625	3093	647	2161
	Small Cause Suits			Miscellaneous Civil Cases and Petitions
	Disposal	Balance		Pending at the beginning of the year	Institutions	Disposal	Balance
		Below one year	Over one year				Below one year	Over one year
1	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17
1954	3782	794	4	1683	4892	4565	1756	254
1955	3244	624	23	2010	4820	4874	1680	276
1956	2274	513	21	1956	4640	4381	1842	373

28. Based on the figures furnished in the Table (Table No. 9) the annual average disposal of a Munsif is given in the following Table (Table No. 10).

Table No. 10

officers	No. of Officers	Civil Suits			Small Cause Suits			Miscellaneous Civil Cases and Petitions
		Average available disposed	Average Disposed of	Average pendency	Average available for disposal	Average disposed of	Average pendency	Average available for disposal	Average disposed of	Average pendency
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11
Munsifs	..	614.3	404.1	210.2	61.6	50.8	10.5	109.8	75.5	33.7

It cannot be said that the disposals in these courts are low. The average duration of suits disposed of by these officers after full trial was 311 and 257 days in 1954 and 1955 respectively. Nevertheless, the total number of pending suits and pending year old suits was on the increase. In order to bring down the number of pending year old suits, and increase the number of officers at least for a temporary period might become necessary.

29. The total number of suits classified according to their valuations instituted in the regular civil courts during the triennium 1954-56 in the State is given in the accompanying Table (Table No. 11).

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