Cuttack: Continuing to express concern over low judge-population ratio in the country, Chief Justice of India TS Thakur said Sunday access to justice was a fundamental right and government cannot afford to deny it to people.
After an emotional outburst over the issue in presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a conference in New Delhi recently, the CJI once again raised the matter while addressing a gathering of legal luminaries here to mark centennial celebrations of the circuit bench of the 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 said, adding 170 proposals for appointment of HC judges were now pending with the government.
Noting that the matter was brought to the notice of the Prime Minister recently with a plea to make the appointments quickly, he said people cannot be denied justice.
‘‘Access to justice is a fundamental right and the government cannot afford to deny the people their fundamental right,’’ he said.
Shortage of judges is one of the formidable challenges the judiciary is facing in the country now, the CJI said adding, out of some 900 sanctioned posts of judges in different High Courts of the country, there are over 450 vacancies which need to be filled up immediately.
Dwelling on the poor judge-population ratio, Justice Thakur said while the Law Commission of India in 1987 had suggested need for 44,000 judges to effectively tackle the then number of pending cases, the country today has only 18,000 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.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who was present as one of the guests of honour on the occasion, said his government was providing 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 Orissa,’’ Patnaik said.
Emphasising on ‘‘mutual respectability,’’ the other guest of honour Justice Dipak Misra of the Supreme Court said the Orissa High Court has a glorious past and everybody must strive to live up to it.
At least ten judges of the Supreme Court and several judges of Calcutta, Patna and Jharkhand High Courts are participating in the centennial celebrations. PTI