Huge Backlog in Legal System, 40 Million Pending Court Cases in India: Chief Justice NV Ramana

Many of the 24,000 approved positions for judicial officers on the country's lower courts remain unfilled, Ramana said, without specifying a number.

New Delhi: Highlighting a huge backlog in the legal system, Chief Justice NV Ramana on Saturday said that India has more than 40 million cases pending in lower courts, as reported by news agencies. Courts were falling short of judges crucial to their efficient function, Ramana told a conference attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Ministers of most states.

The CJI expressed his unease on the governments being the biggest litigants by accounting for nearly 50 per of the cases before courts and said that while the judiciary is often blamed for the pendency, there is a huge workload on the judges.

“We have 20 judges per million population, which is highly inadequate to deal with the rising trend of litigation,” NV Ramana said. Many of the 24,000 approved positions for judicial officers on the country’s lower courts remain unfilled, Ramana said, without specifying a number.

Time has come to move from ad-hoc committees to a more streamlined, accountable and organised structure by creating a National Judicial Infrastructure Authority for the standardization and improvement of judicial infrastructure which currently needs urgent attention, Ramana said.

(With agency inputs)