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India Has 20 Judges For Every 10 Lakh People: Law Ministry

India now has 20 judges for every one lakh people compared with 17 last year.

A gavel sits on a stage. (Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg News)
A gavel sits on a stage. (Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg News)

There are 20 judges per 10 lakh people in the country compared to 17 in 2014, the Law Ministry said.

Based on the population as per Census 2011 and sanctioned strength of judges in Supreme Court, the 24 high courts, and lower judiciary in 2018, the judge-population ratio in the country works out to be 19.78 judges per million population, Minister of State for Law P P Chaudhary said in a written reply in Lok Sabha. He said the ratio was 17.48 judges per million population in 2014.

The sanctioned strength of judges of high courts increased from 906 judges in June 2014 to 1,079 in December 2018. The sanctioned strength of Judges of district/subordinate courts rose from 20,214 in 2014 to 22,833 in 2018.

The working strength of judges in high courts, however, is 673, while for the Supreme Court it is 28 against the sanctioned strength of 31.