Judge-population ratio
Topic: Justice Delivery: Subordinate Courts, Tribunals, Legal Aid and Judicial Reforms · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
The judge-population ratio is the number of judges for every million (10 lakh) people. It is used to show whether a country has enough judges. The Law Commission's 120th Report (1987) suggested 50 judges per million people. India has only about 21 per million. This low ratio is a major cause of judicial pendency, the backlog of cases in courts. In its 245th Report (2014), the Law Commission moved to a different method. It worked out judge needs from how many cases courts actually dispose of.
Example
With about 21 judges per million people, each judge carries a very heavy caseload. This helps explain why over 5 crore cases are pending in Indian courts. Most of them are in district and subordinate courts.
Related concepts
- Judicial pendency
- National Judicial Data Grid
- e-Courts project
- Virtual courts
- Justice delayed is justice denied