Judge-population ratio stands at 18:10 lakh

Karnataka High Court short of 36 judges, can have 62

The judge population ratio in the country stands at 18 judges per 10 lakh people, in place of 50 judges recommended by the Law Commission in its 1987 report.

According to data from the Law Ministry, the judge to population ratio in India stands at 17.86 judges per 10 lakh people.

Mizoram has the highest judge to population ratio at 57.74. In Delhi, it stands at 47.33, while in Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state of the country, the ratio is 10.54 judges per 10 lakh people.

West Bengal has the lowest ratio at 10.45 judges per 10 lakh people.

The sanctioned strength of the Supreme Court stands at 31 judges, including the Chief Justice of India, as compared to 25 in 2009. The apex court faces a shortage of three judges. Four new judges were recently appointed to the apex court.

The sanctioned strength of the high courts till 2014 was 906 judges. It increased to 1,079 in June this year. There are 24 high courts in the country. However, despite an increase in the sanctioned strength, the high court, as on August 1, faced a shortage of 478 judges.

Only the Tripura High Court functioned with its total strength of four judges. The Allahabad High Court, with an approved strength of 160 judges, had vacancies for 82 judges.

The Karnataka High Court, having a sanctioned strength of 62 judges, faced a shortage of 36 judges.

The subordinate courts in the country, the backbone of the justice delivery system, have a sanctioned strength of 20,502 judges. But there were only 16,070 judicial officers serving in the courts and the shortage stood at 4,432 as on December 31, 2015.

Addressing the inaugural session of the joint conference of chief ministers and chief justices of high courts here in April, CJI T S Thakur had said, since 1987, when the law commission had recommended an increase in the number of judges from then 10 judges per 10 lakh people to 50, “nothing has moved”. 

In a written response, Minister of State for Law P P Chaudhary told the Lok Sabha recently that the commission in its 254th report reviewed the criteria of the judge-population ratio on a request from the Supreme Court.