By IANS,

New Delhi : The Supreme Court Thursday endorsed a plan for creating nine judicial districts, on the lines of the existing nine police districts, in the national capital city of Delhi.

A bench of Justices B.N. Agarwal, P.P. Naolekar and D.K. Jain ratified the June 2000 notification of the Delhi government, dismissing a lawsuit by the Delhi Bar Association (DBA), challenging the government's decision.

The bench dismissed various legal objections raised by the DBA against the Delhi lieutenant-governor's (L-G) notification.

The LG's notification itself was based on an apex court ruling of May 1, 2000 directing the Delhi government to take concrete steps towards the creation of smaller judicial districts.

Despite the Delhi High Court being in existence since 1966 and Delhi itself being a state since 1993, the entire Delhi continued to be a single civil district for judicial administration, with merely one district judge heading the entire subordinate judiciary of the national capital.

The bench said: "Over the years, with growth in the population of the city, the amount of litigation has seen a constant upward spiral."

"The very high volume of litigation both on the civil side and on the criminal side has led to a huge backlog of cases and great delays in dispensation of justice, putting the common man and the layman-litigant to great inconvenience," it said.

It ruled that division of Delhi into nine judicial districts with one district judge heading each districts and with several additional district and sessions judges working under him or her, the problem of huge backlog of cases could be effectively and expeditiously tackled.