Sadananda Gowda: CJI claim on need of judges not scientific

Union law and justice minister Sadananda Gowda on Wednesday said the report cited by the Chief Justice of India to claim that the country needed 40,000 judges was not based on any scientific research. He, however, maintained the government has hastened efforts to fill up vacancies in the higher judiciary.

Mr Gowda said the adequacy of bench strength in a country is determined on the basis of workload on the courts and not judge-population ratio.

CJI T.S. Thakur had reportedly virtually broken down in the presence of the Prime Minister on April 24 and lamented the government’s “inaction” in increasing the number of judges from the present 21,000 to 40,000 to handle the “avalanche” of litigation.

“Nothing has moved” since 1987 when the Law Commission of India had recommended increase in the number of judges from then 10 judges per 10 lakh people to 50, Mr Thakur had said.

Gowda said the Law Commission report given in 1987 was based on the opinion of some experts and the public. “In the report itself they said that this has to be calculated on the basis of scientific data. But no scientific data was available. Even recently in the Imtiaz Ahmed case, the Supreme Court itself has asked the Law Commission to once again look into the matter. They once again said that this may not be possible unless we get the scientific data,” Gowda said.

The Law Minister said though the Supreme Court Collegium is still considering the draft of the revised Memorandum of Procedure — a document to guide the appointment of judges to the higher judiciary — he recently wrote to the CJI asking him to keep sending names for appointments which can be cleared based on the old MoP.

“Appointment of judges to the higher judiciary has been undertaken. 86 additional Judges were made permanent, 51 new judges were appointed and appointment of another 170 is being processed. We cleared the name of four SC judges in a record six working days. Judges’ sanctioned strength of the High Courts has been increased from 906 on June 1, 2014 to 1065 as on April 27 this year. In the case of District/Subordinate Courts, the sanctioned strength has been increased from 17,715 at the end of 2012 to 20,502 in December, 2015,” he said.

On the Supreme Court collegium’s objection to a clause in the MoP in which the government has sought to reserve the right to reject a recommendation on concerns of national interest, Gowda said he has so far not received any feedback from the CJI on the issue.

Asked about the response of the government to the collegium’s reported move to ignore seniority in elevating chief justices of high courts to the apex court, Gowda said it was upto the judiciary. “Had the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act been there, we would have said something in the regard,” he said. The new law on appointment of judges to the SC and the HCs was struck down by the apex court in October last.