Our Constitution has seen 62 years of its implementation by the three pillars of democracy viz. the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary. Article 226 of the Constitution of India, falls within the domain of the Judiciary. At the beginning of the working of the Constitution, a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India was a comparative rarity and High Courts used to exercise jurisdiction under the said Article very sparingly. But over the last five decades the number of writ petitions under Article 226 has increased by geometrical proportions. High Courts have expanded the jurisdictional vistas of Article 226 beyond recognition and common man has become so aware of the remedy available to him to redress his grievances through this constitutional remedy, that for anything and everything people have started approaching the High Court with writ petitions under Article 226. While that fact reaffirms the faith of the common man in the judiciary, as a by-product, the High Court is finding it extremely difficult to contain the pendency of the writ petitions to manageable proportions. Pendency of writ petitions is steadily increasing. One of the reasons for this trend, at least in the case of writ petitions, is the failure of the Government officers and officers of other statutory bodies and instrumentalities of State to discharge their statutory duties within a reasonable time. Statutes have vested these bodies with executive and quasi-judicial functions. But things have come to a stage where officers entrusted with such functions discharge most of those functions only after the High Court issues writs of mandamus commanding them to exercise those functions within a time frame. Examples are legion. Various statutes provide for appeals and revisions against orders of assessment in taxation statutes. Like provisions are there in respect of executive action under the Kerala Education Act and the Rules made thereunder. In fact in almost all statutes quasi-judicial remedies are provided for. But it is distressing to note that these appeals and revisions are kept pending for years together unless the party obtains writs commanding disposal of the appeals and revisions. The same is the case of statutory executive functions as well. One example is the exercise of functions under the land laws. The statutes provide for mutation of properties, acceptance of land tax, survey of properties, fixation of boundaries, assignment of government land and so on. The officers vested with powers under those statutes rarely discharge their duties within time. For example, under the Transfer of Registry Rules, when property changes hands by a registered document, along with the document produced before the Sub Registrar's Office for registration, the party is required to file an application in the prescribed form also, a copy of the document so registered furnished on the reverse side of it, for transfer of registry, which the registering officer is bound to forward to the concerned Tahsildar and the Tahsildar and officers under him are bound to process the said application in accordance with the Rules. But the same is seldom, nay, never, done. Even when parties separately apply for transfer of registry paying court fee for the same, without an order from this court, more often than not, those applications are never processed. These areas are breeding grounds for corruption also. It has come to such a stage that even for accepting land tax due to the Government in respect of private properties, parties are forced to grease appropriate palms. Another area where this tendency is increasing is in the area of sanctioning of retirement benefits to retired employees. Most officers treat retired officers without any respect, forgetting that they are also bound to retire sooner or later. Resultantly, writ petitions seeking direction to disburse retirement benefits are also ever increasing. The number of writ petitions coming up b