Judiciary got only ‘peanuts’ from State funds in last three years: SC judge

In a rare public nudge to the executive, Justice Aravind Kumar, a judge of the Supreme Court, on Saturday highlighted a fiscal disparity in Karnataka’s judicial funding in the past three years while urging Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to direct officials to allocate at least 75-80% of court-collected revenue back for the judiciary’s infrastructure.

Speaking at the 22nd Biennial State-Level Conference of Judicial Officers in Bengaluru, Justice Kumar noted that the State exchequer annually received ₹376 crore, ₹439 crore and ₹470 crore from 2023-24 to 2025-26, in forms, however, the government allocated only between ₹40 lakh to ₹1.4 crore during this period, other than the non-salary allocation for the judiciary.