Why India's courts are struggling to find judges

The lower courts, where the maximum cases are stuck, struggle to find judges, thanks to poor salaries on offer and limited growth opportunities

The problem of a massive backlog in the judiciary is not new. But courts in India present a stark picture of what happens when the judicial system fails to keep pace with time: there now exists an unprecedented pile-up of over 30 million cases across courts in the country. With 20 million new cases being filed each year, this backlog, according to the now-famous statement made by Justice V V Rao, may take as long as 320 years to clear.

Clearly, the judiciary is failing in keeping the promise of a speedy trial, but how have things come to