India has 21.03 judges per million people, Lok Sabha told

India has 21.03 judges per million people, Lok Sabha was informed on Friday.

In a written reply, Law Minister Kiren Rijiju said, "The judge to population ratio (judge per million population) with respect to sanctioned strength of judges is 21.03 as on October 31, 2021."

In order to calculate the judge-population ratio per million population in a particular year, the Department of Justice uses the criterion of using the population as per Census 2011 and as per available information regarding sanctioned strength of judges in Supreme Court, the high courts and district and subordinate courts in the particular year, he explained.

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The data pertaining to the number of judges per million of the population is not maintained state or union territory wise, he said.

He said the Law Commission had not considered the judge population ratio to be a scientific criterion for determining the adequacy of the judge strength in the country.

"The Law Commission found that in the absence of complete and scientific approach to data collection across various high courts in the country, the 'rate of disposal' method, to calculate the number of additional judges required to clear the backlog of cases as well as to ensure that new backlog is not created, is more pragmatic and useful," he said.

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