\government publicly, they cannot be expected to remain silent in a situation of rising political violence.

Article 356 gave wide powers to the central government to assert its authority over a state if civil unrest occurred and the state government did not have the means to end the unrest. This is one of the articles that gave the Indian constitution some amount of unitary character. Though the purpose of this article is to give more powers to central government to preserve the unity and integrity of the nation, it has often been misused[citation needed] by the ruling parties at the center. It has been used as a pretext to dissolve state governments ruled by political opponents[citation needed]. Thus, it is seen by many as a threat to the federal state system. Since the adoption of Indian constitution in 1950, the central government has used this article several times[citation needed] to dissolve elected state governments and impose President's rule. 11th Jan When India had 1,500 fast track courts Although the judiciary is blamed for the delay in dispensing justice, it is the government that is at fault The mere fact that the FTCs have been discontinued should not deter the Chief Justice of India from reviewing this judgment on a Constitutional Bench and directing governments to increase the budgets for the judiciary and make more appointments. FTCs were started by the Central government pursuant to the observations of the : First National Judicial Pay Commission, 1999 the 120th Report of the Law Commission on Manpower Planning in the judiciary the report on Crime in India published by the National Crime Records Bureau the lamentations of every Chief Justice of India who used the Law Day address to highlight the mounting arrears and the paucity of funds available to the judiciary India has about 11 judicial officers per million population as compared to Australias 42 and Canadas 75 ; the United Kingdom has 51 and the United States has 107 per million population.

 To deal with the current volume of litigation and eliminate arrears, India needs to appoint five times the present strength of judges. The Central and State governments, however, treat the judiciary as a pariah and pretend not to understand how important this institution is for the survival of democracy itself. DEMEANING RULES When judges were appointed to the FTCs, their service conditions were settled by the framing of rules which were done in consultation with the High Courts of the States. Regrettably, demeaning rules were framed treating these quite talented judicial officers as if they were purely temporary employees with no right to be regularised in the cadre and their services were capable of being terminated at will without notice. Relying on these unfortunate rules, the Supreme Court upheld the sacking of over 1,500 trained judicial officers by treating their request for regularisation in the same manner as an ad hoc government employee. Relying on the unfortunate judgment in State of Karnataka vs Uma Devi and Others, 2006 where ad hoc government employees who had served for decades were declared to have no rights at all, the FTC judges found themselves age barred for recruitment elsewhere and unable to practice under the Bar Council of India rules in any court other than the High Courts of the States or the Supreme Court of India. The winding up of these courts despite their fair performance and the huge arrears that needed to be tackled was justified by the central government on the incredible argument that the 13th Finance Commission had recommended a grant of Rs.5,000 crore for improving the justice delivery system and that out of this Rs.2500 crore was to be spent on courts working in shifts, Lok Adalats, the Legal Services Authorities, Alternate Disputes Resolution and the judicial academies for trainings. Thus due to the shift in perspective, money could no longer be spent on FTCs.