But they are faced with acute shortage in numbers, truck loads of pending cases, ever increasing burden of more and more cases, archaic and time consuming law and procedures, etc.

To give an idea:·                    The Supreme Court has 31 judges with a pendency of 46,926 cases (January 2009). The number has since crossed 50,000.·                    The 21 High Courts, have 635 judges against the sanctioned strength of 886.
They have pendency of 38.7 lakh cases (January 1, 2009 – 37.4 lakh cases on January 1, 2008).
Our judges are working against such odds.

Once in a while, a charge is made, an allegation levelled against a judge.
A charge was made against Justice Soumitra Sen of the Kolkata High Court.
He was alleged to have appropriated Rs 32 lakh as a court-appointed receiver in 1993 in a lawsuit between SAIL and Shipping Corporation of India over supply of fire bricks by depositing the money in his personal account, in spite of knowing that the money had to be kept in a separate bank account.

Justice Sen retained the money even after being elevated to the High Court in 2003, and returned it only after the High Court ordered him to pay it back in April 2006.

The allegations were referred to a three judge inquiry committee. The committee found Justice Sen’s conduct a serious misconduct.
Justice K G Balakrishnan, the Chief Justice of India requested the Prime Minister to initiate impeachment proceedings.
In September 2008, the Govt. decided to initiate impeachment proceedings.

The impeachment proceedings have commenced and would be taken to their logical conclusion.
On his part, Justice Sen has chosen to defend himself.

This is in bad taste. Once a serious allegation has been levelled against a judge, and his peers found truth in the allegations, the least the judge should do is resign.

The entire judicial system is based on faith and respect. If that has gone, what is left?

Instead of sticking on to his post, it would have been a far more graceful gesture for Justice Sen to quit.Judges have quit in the past. There is nothing wrong in quitting. That would have been the best action.

The first impeachment process in India was initiated against a Supreme Court Judge V Ramaswami in 1991 for misconduct in furniture purchases when he was the Chief Justice of Haryana HC.
But he was not formally impeached.