Judges-population ratio has to improve to reduce case backlog
August, 09th 2007
Decrying the current judges-to-population ratio of 10.5 (judges) to a million population as highly inadequate to tackle the nearly three crore pending cases in various courts of the country, Mr Justice Kalyan Jyoti Sengupta of the Calcutta High Court said here on Wednesday that the ratio should improve to at least 15 judges to a million population.
Citing our ratio as even lower than that of Bangladesh (which has 12 judges to a million population), Mr Justice Sengupta said the judges were today really hard-pressed to reduce the backlog.
(It is learnt that the Law Commission has suggested 50 judges per million population. India is said to rank among the lowest in the world in this ratio.) Speaking at the inaugural session of a two-day workshop on Mechanism of Alternative Dispute Resolution, organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce, Mr Justice Sengupta said in some 80 per cent of the cases in High Courts, the Government was the litigant.
