Continuing to express his concern over the governments’ inactions in improving the judge-population ratio in the country, the Chief Justice of India T. S. Thakur on Sunday said access to justice is a fundamental right and the governments cannot afford to deny the people their fundamental rights.
After an emotional outburst over the problem of ‘shortage of judges’ in presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a conference in New Delhi last month, the CJI once again raised the issue within a fortnight while addressing a large gathering of legal luminaries here on the occasion of centennial celebrations of circuit bench of High Court.
“While we (judiciary) remain keen to ensure that judges’ appointments are made quickly, the machinery involved with the appointment of judges continue to grind very slowly”, Justice Thakur alleged saying around 170 proposals for appointment of HC judges are currently pending with the government.
Referring that this matter was brought to the notice of the Prime Minister recently with a request to make the appointments quickly, Justice Thakur said people cannot be denied justice. “Access to justice is a fundamental right and Government cannot afford to deny the people their fundamental rights”, he said.
Shortage of judges is one of the formidable challenges the judiciary is facing in the country now, the CJI said disclosing that out of some 900 sanctioned posts of judges in different High Courts of the country, there are over 450 vacancies, which need to be fulfilled immediately.
Dwelling on the poor judge-population ratio, the CJI said while the Law Commission of India in 1987 had suggested for having 44,000 judges to effectively tackle the then number of pending cases, the country today has only 18000 judges.
“Thirty years down the line, we continue to work with depleted strength. If you go by the number of people that have been added to the population, we may now require more than 70,000 judges to clear the pending cases”, he said.
Addressing as one of the guests of honour on the occasion, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said his government is continuing to provide adequate financial support for improving the judicial infrastructure in the State. “We are committed to the overall strengthening and development of justice delivery system in Odisha,” Mr. Patnaik said.
The other guest of honour Justice Dipak Misra of the Supreme Court said Orissa High Court has a glorious past and everybody must strive to live up to that emphasising on “mutual respectability”.
At least ten judges of the Supreme Court and several judges of Calcutta, Patna and Jharkhand High Courts are participating in the centennial celebrations that will continue for about a week with seminars, conferences and cultural programmes lined up for the occasion. (EOM)
