Justice In India A Hall Order: Despite Plan To Fill Judicial Vacancies, Shortage Of 4,000 Courtrooms To Impact Hard

For the district judiciary and their subordinate courts, just about 18,400 halls are presently available in India. An estimated 4,000 more courtrooms will be required in case of all lower judiciary vacancies being filled up. Government of India is planning on wrapping up the construction of over 2,730 court halls this financial year.

Supreme Court of India has mandated that all 5,700 odd vacancies for various posts in the judiciary be filled up at the earliest. Just about 16,728 judicial officers work as opposed to the sanctioned number of 22,474 judges, Times of India reported. This comes after CJI Ranjan Gogoi emphasised on the need to create new infrastructure required and fill up vacancies to clear the backlog of over 2.72 crore cases.

A one-time nationwide examination is being planned to ease the process of appointing judicial officers for lower courts. Local languages will be given importance. The process will be similar to that of NEET. This will produce a nationwide merit-list of those who aspire to become judicial officers. Sources have told Times of India that the required money for the work to be done is sanctioned by the central government.