NEW DELHI, May 12:
The Supreme Court today sought response from the Centre on a PIL seeking a direction for doubling the number of judges as recommended by the Law Commission.
A bench comprising Chief Justice T S Thakur and Justice R Banumathi issued notice to the Ministry of Law and Justice and Ministry of Finance on the plea filed by BJP leader and lawyer Ashwani Kumar Upadhyay.
The PIL has also sought a direction to implement the resolution of the advisory council of the National Mission for Justice Delivery and Legal Reforms.
In his PIL, Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay referred to the abysmal population-judge ratio in the country.
“India has only about 11 judges per million populations, which is among the lowest ratios in the world. The cases pending exceed about 30,000 per million populations.
“Obviously, it is unrealistic to expect the law courts to deal with this abnormal caseload or to be accessible to people of India,” the plea said.
The plea also referred to various reports of the Law Commission and sought a direction to the Centre to implement the resolution passed in the 2013 conference of chief justices and chief ministers on increasing number of judges.
“Every accused is entitled to fair trail and speedy justice. Unexplained and inordinate delay of the trial for no fault of the accused is clearly a violation of the Article 21. Expeditious trial is a basic right of every accused, which cannot be trampled upon unless it can be shown that the accused itself is responsible for the delay.
“Fair trial and speedy justice is component of personal liberty and a procedure is void if it does not provide a fair trial and speedy justice. Inordinate delay in bringing an accused to trial or in preferring an appeal against his acquittal, are violative of the Article 21,” the plea said.
It further said the number of judges be increased as it would prevent undue and oppressive incarceration prior to trial and minimise “anxiety and concern accompanying public accusation”.
“People’s faith in judicial system could not be maintained without providing fair trial and speedy justice uniformly to all the Indian citizens,” it said. (PTI)
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