The Hindu : Karnataka News : Need for more judges stressed

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Tuesday, Nov 27, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka

Need for more judges stressed

Staff Correspondent

Shortage leading to cases piling up in courts

Over 29,000 cases pending in Supreme Court
India has only 10 judges for every 10 lakh people

Chitradurga: Several factors such as the shortage of judges have resulted in a large number of cases pending trial, Nataraj, professor and head of the Department of Criminology, Madakari Nayaka First Grade College, has said.

Speaking at a legal awareness programme organised by the District Legal Services Authority and the district Bar Association here on Monday, he said there were at least six posts of judges vacant in the Supreme Court, 200 in the High Courts and around 2,500 in the lower courts.

Elaborating on the factors inhibiting speedy disposal of cases, Mr. Nataraj said the wide gap in the ratio of judges to people in the country prevented the speedy delivery of justice. In the U.K. there were around 50 judges for every 10 lakh people, while in Australia there were 58 judges for the same number of people. The corresponding figure for Canada was 76 and for the U.S. it was 108. “In contrast, India has only 10 judges for every 10 lakh people. In this situation, it would certainly be difficult to ensure early disposal of cases,” he said.

The Law Commission of India had repeatedly emphasised this critical aspect and had been asking for more judges to be appointed.Mr. Nataraj also said that reckless government policies, failure of the administration to discharge its responsibilities and increasing false cases were adding to the problem.

“Statistics also revealed that about one-fourth of the politicians of the country had criminal antecedents,” he said. “Around 30 per cent of cases could be reduced if the Government were to draft policies wisely.

Similarly, 20 per cent of fake and fabricated cases could be disposed of early and 10 per cent cases relating to public interest could be reduced,” he said.

Mr. Nataraj said that at present over 29,000 cases were pending before the Supreme Court alone, over 30 lakh before the High Courts and over 2 crore cases before the lower courts.

The piling up of cases had led to reduced faith in the judiciary among the people, and people had started taking the law unto their own hands to ensure justice, he said.

Constitutional credibility

Despite such serious problems, the Indian judiciary had been doing well in upholding constitutional credibility and democracy, he said.

District Principal and Sessions Judge T. Nanjappa was present.

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