Uttar Pradesh [Images] ranks highest in terms of shortage of judges with 748 posts still to be filled against a sanctioned strength of 2,172 for district courts in the state.

This accounts for more than 28 per cent of the nationwide shortage.

In all, the courts of the country are short of 2,655 judges against the total sanctioned strength of 14,305, official figures show.

Uttar Pradesh was followed by Bihar with a figure of 472 against the sanctioned strength 1163 for the state.

Yet further down are Maharashtra with 216, Karnataka (138), West Bengal (110), Rajasthan (106), Madhya Pradesh [Images] (106). The remaining states have two-figure shortage.

In states like Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland and union territories of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, the judges worked in full strength.

The judges to population ratio still stood at 13 per 10 lakh people against the required 50 judges per 10 lakh people in the country.

The onus of filling posts of judges at district level courts lies with state governments and respective high courts and the Centre has written to them that all vacant positions should be filled.

As for the high courts, the shortage figure stood at 71 against the sanctioned strength of 686 judges and a review of shortage, which is carried out every three years, is pending this year.

In the Supreme Court, there is a shortage of four judges against the total sanctioned strength of 26 judges.

Apart from shortage of judges, the number of pending cases can be ascribed to factors such as increase in number of cases, new laws, rise in population, heightened awareness among citizens of their legal rights, adjournments, lawyers' strikes, increase in socio-economic matters, legal and administrative aspects touching the lives of the citizens.