New Delhi: The senior-most judge of the Supreme Court Justice J Chelameswar, who had, along with three other judges, revolted against the Chief Justice of India on allotment of cases to benches of his preferences, said on Monday that "impartial and independent judiciary is must for survival of liberal democracy". 

Justice Chelameswar whilereleasing a book on the Supreme Court, said that with the constitution conferring enormous jurisdiction on the apex court and the court's eagerness to do complete justice, number of cases being heard in the top court had increased over the years and the court was facing a tough time in providing speedy justice.

"There is huge arrear of cases and it is impossible to clear the backlog. Sorry to say but it is not going to be cleared in our lifetime and the empirical data says so. The problem faced by the court is real. Solution is imperative and the solution has to be found if the institution is to survive," he said.

He said that only one sixth of the population, that fights cases in courts, had direct interaction with the judiciary but the topcourt's order had bearing on every citizen in some or the other way and that a remedy had to be evolved.

Justice Chelameswar, however, refused to respond to the ongoing controversy within the SC on allotment of cases.

Former Attorney General Ashok Desai said that judges were also to be blamed for the increasing pendency in cases and that the court had started entertaining all sorts of cases including matters pertaining to pollution, cleaning of rivers etc. 

"Judges now-a-days take lot of matters which they cannot decide in a lifetime”, he added.

 The Supreme Court has by and large been acting as an Ombudsman and people can now approach court for any of their grievances. If you take on all of the disputes then the institution would become altogether different from what was envisaged," he said.