Number of judges to be 37,000 in next five years: Govt

New Delhi., April 7: The government and judiciary have decided to double the number of judges to nearly 37,000 in a phased manner in the next five years.

With this decision, the judge - population ratio will increase from 15.47 per million to 30 judges per million population.

These decisions were taken at the conference of Chief Ministers and Chief justices of High Courts in the national capital on Sunday.

"On behalf of the Central government, I would like to assure this august gathering that we would increase appropriately the quantum of funding for the scheme under which we provide support to the State governments for creation of infrastructure for subordinate judiciary," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said.

Earlier, addressing the conference, Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh assured Chief Ministers of more central funds for creation of infrastructure for subordinate judiciary to address the issue of pendency of cases.

Dr. Singh also said that our justice delivery system needs urgent attention. He said with the growing population there is a need to significantly enhance the number of judges to administer justice on time.

He appealed to state government heads who were participating in the conference along with judges of Supreme Court and High Courts to extend all possible help to strengthen the judicial system.

Union Law Minister Ashwani Kumar said that the number of gram Nyayalas in the country will increase from 172 to over 600 by the end of 2013.

The Conference was organized by the Department of Justice, Ministry of Law & Justice, to address pressing issues relating to the administration of justice in the country.

The last such conference was held on 16th August 2009.