Abstract for: System Dynamics Modelling to Understand Pendency of Criminal Cases in the Indian Justice System

The Indian Justice System is burdened by a huge number of pending cases and a slow pace of disposal, creating a problem of pendency. Timely justice is crucial for maintaining the rule of law, but delay in getting justice can undermine public trust, particularly for undertrials and their families. Many studies in the Indian context take a linear view of pendency, thereby suggesting solutions that are not effective. This paper takes a feedback view of pendency by developing system dynamics (SD) models. We apply a step-wise model development approach, collaborating with experts from the justice system to simulate dynamics between judicial productivity, pending criminal cases, and case institutionalisation rate. We also test the impact of various proposed interventions. Our model results highlight the significant differences in the dynamics of pending criminal cases when a feedback view is taken, contrary to a linear view. The results show that solutions like increasing the number of judges will not substantially reduce pendency due to non-linearity arising from feedback relationships among judicial productivity, institutionalisation rate, and pending cases. Overall, we conclude that if feedback induced nonlinearity is not considered while making decisions, the proposed interventions will not have the desired outcomes.