Law Minister D V Sadanand Gowda,. Law Minister D V Sadanand Gowda,.

Disputing the numbers cited by Chief Justice of India (CJI) T S Thakur on shortage of judges, Union Law Minister D V Sadananda Gowda Wednesday said that the demand was not backed by any scientific or empirical data.

Gowda said that the report cited by CJI Thakur to claim that the country needed 40,000 judges was not based on any scientific research and that he would not want to comment on the exact number for want of concrete data.

Read | CJI Thakur makes impassioned plea to Modi govt: Need you to act, don’t just criticise

On April 24, the CJI had made an impassioned plea to the government to help upgrade judicial infrastructure and start addressing the glaring problem of shortage of judges. These, he said, were vital to the country’s future given the government’s emphasis on flagship initiatives such as “Make in India” and “Invest in India”.

Read | We require more than 70,000 judges to clear pending cases: CJI TS Thakur

CJI Thakur, who was addressing a joint conference of chief ministers and chief justices of high courts, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Gowda present on the dais, had said the country needed at least 40,000 judges to handle the “avalanche” of litigation.

The CJI’s remarks were brought up Wednesday when the Law Minister addressed a press conference to mark two years of the Modi government.

Read | A case of too many cases

Responding to a question on whether the government will ever be able to reach the target of 40,000 judges (judges in the lower courts as well as judges of the Supreme Court and the 24 High Courts), Gowda said the Law Commission report given in 1987 was based on the opinion of some experts and the public.

“In the report itself they said that this has to be calculated on the basis of scientific data. But no scientific data was available… even recently in the Imtiaz Ahmed case, the Supreme Court itself has asked the Law Commission to once again look into the matter. They once again said that this may not be possible unless we get the scientific data,” he said.

Gowda added that the adequacy of bench strength in a country is determined on the basis of workload on the courts and not judge-population ratio while maintaining the government has hastened efforts to fill up vacancies in Supreme Court and the high courts.

He pointed out that the judge-population ratio depended on several factors and varied from state to state.

“There has been 17 per cent increase in number of cases while the judges’ number was raised to 42 per cent,” he said, adding judges sanctioned strength of the high courts has been increased from 906 on June 1, 2014 to 1,065 on April 27, 2016, and that of district courts from 17,715 at the end of 2012 to 20,502 in December, last.

Gowda said the government was yet to receive views of the CJI-led Collegium on the memorandum of procedure, which would guide the appointment of judges in higher judiciary.

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