21% posts vacant in district courts, Govt needs to invest more: Ex-CJI

Calling on the government to invest "much more" in infrastructure to handle the caseload in the judiciary, Former Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud highlighted that about 21 per cent of the posts are laying vacant in district judiciaries.

In an interview with ANI, Justice DY Chandrachud, who recently retired from the post of the CJI, pointed out that the Judge to population ratio in India is amongst the lowest in the world.

"We do not have the number of judges which you require in the district judiciary to handle the kind of volume of caseload which is coming into the district judiciary. So first and foremost, you have to increase the judge-to-population ratio by appointing more judges," he said.

The former Chief Justice also emphasised on the need to identify and appoint more qualified people.

"Governments have to invest much more in infrastructure, which is not being done. Third, today, there is about 21 per cent of posts in district judiciaries that are lying vacant. The 27 per cent is a vacancy in the staffing pattern of the district judiciary. Now, that is something in a federal polity, which is handled by the high courts and by the public service commissions in certain states," he said.

The former CJI also called for an "All India Judicial Service Examination" to fill the vacancies in the district judiciary.

"Speaking for myself, I feel that one solution for the vacancies in the district judiciary is to have an all-India judicial service examination where the states would recruit, but there will at least be one all-India examination yearly, which will be held on schedule and the people on that, in that order of merit and applying reservations, of course, as applicable to every state would be selected by the states. So we have to find innovative solutions," Justice Chandrachud said.

He also pointed out that this will require a constitutional amendment because, the recruitment and conditions of service of the judges to the district judiciary are, controlled by the governors.

Further, Justice Chandrachud emphasized that the Supreme Court is a court that deals with the problems of the poor and highlighted that in over the last two years of his tenure, the Apex Court had disposed of more bail applications than what was filed.

"The Supreme Court is not a court for the resourced. It's not a court for the rich. It's a court which deals with the problems of the poor. You have bench after bench of the Supreme Court dealing with bail applications of the smallest persons. In the last two years when I was a judge of the Supreme Court, 21,000 bail applications were filed. These are bail applications of common citizens. We disposed of 21,358 bail applications. Much more than what was filed. And those are bail applications involving small, many of them very ordinary citizens who have cases of cheating, cases under the NDPS Act, cases involving assaults," he said.

Asked about the perception that people don't get a fair hearing because of religious reasons, Justice Chandrachud said that it is not a correct perception.

"If you see the number of people across communities who are granted bail, and that has nothing to do with the religion of a particular person. But as I said, whether to grant bail in an individual case is for that bench or that judge to take at that particular point of time," he said.

He also raised concerns about the reluctance to grant bail by district courts.

"The concern which I have, however, which I have made clear earlier, is that district courts today, there is a reluctance to grant bail. And the reason for that is this culture of mistrust in our society. Because district judges are worried about the fact that if I grant bail, will there be an allegation against me that I have done it for extraneous reasons? And I've always said that, we as judges of the superior courts have to protect our judges at the lowest of the pyramid," Chandrachud said.

"If a judge in the district judiciary grants bail incorrectly, obviously it's capable of correction by a higher forum. But let's not then target judges who have granted bail," he added.