Need good judges: SC declines plea for doubling judges

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to entertain a plea seeking to double the number of judges in the high courts and trial courts, saying more judges does not mean more disposal, instead good judges are required.

A bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and comprising Justice P S Narasimha told the petitioner, advocate Ashwini Upadhyay, that doubling the number of judges is not the solution to address pendency of cases. "More judges do not mean more disposal, you need good judges," the Chief Justice told Upadhyay.

The bench noted that the petitioner has adopted a very simplistic approach to address the pendency of cases, as it emphasized that simply doubling the judges would not address the issue.

Upadhyay submitted that nearly 5 crore cases are pending in courts, which means nearly 20 crore people are affected, and this is close to the population of the US.

However, the bench was not convinced with his arguments. "But, doubling the number of judges is not the solution. Every evil you see does not mean that PIL should be filed," said the bench. The Chief Justice told Upadhyay "try getting judges to fill up the existing, you will see how difficult it is", and added that it is difficult to fill 160 seats in Allahabad High Court and the petitioner is asking for 320.

Justice Chandrachud said: "Have you been to Bombay High Court? Not even a single judge can be added there because there is no infrastructure. Adding more judges is not the answer."

The bench remarked that it may impose costs on such PILs for taking up the judicial time which was meant to hear genuine matters.