The Union government has set aside ₹3,320 crore for the completion of a Centrally sponsored scheme to develop infrastructure for the judiciary by March 31, 2020.
“The Central government has approved the continuation of the Centrally Sponsored Scheme for Development of Infrastructure Facilities for Judiciary beyond the 12th Five Year Plan period, that is, from April 1, 2017 to March 31, 2020 with an estimated outlay of ₹3,320 crore,” Union Minister of State for Law and Justice P.P. Chaudhary informed Parliament.
Currently, 3,143 court halls and 1,682 residences for judges are under construction.
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“A total of ₹6,006 crore has been released since 1993-94, out of which ₹2,562 crore (42.66%) has been released since April 2014,” government statistics in Parliament show.
As on November 30, 2017, 17,848 court halls and 14,085 residential accommodations have been made available for judicial officers of district and subordinate courts.
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However, the Centre said there were 5,984 judicial vacancies in the subordinate judiciary. That is, the vacancies amount to 26.38% of the sanctioned strength of 22,677.
This means that the number of vacancies in the subordinate judiciary has increased by over 1,000 from November 2016. Vacancies at that point of time was 4,937.
In January 2017, the National Court Management Systems Committee had filed an interim report in the Supreme Court saying that mere clearance of backlog was not the sole basis for determining the judge strength required in the subordinate judiciary to deal with pendency.
The court had prima facie agreed with a suggestion made by G. Mohan Gopal, Chairperson of the committee, that the rate of disposal method missed several critical aspects on the colossal backlog in subordinate courts.