vacancy
The collegium will not wait for the government’s new procedural guidelines on transparent judicial appointments, to start the process of appointment of 400 new high court judges and five new Supreme Court judges, reported the Hindustan Times.
High courts across India are facing 445 judicial vacancies at the moment, amounting to 57 per cent vacancy and facing a case pendency of 45 lakh.
No appointments were made in the higher judiciary ever since 2014 when the government notified the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC). After the Supreme Court struck down the NJAC in October 2015, on 16 December it directed the government to formulate a new memorandum of process (MoP) for transparency in judicial appointments.
But the MoP is still not finalised and will likely take time due to the opinions of many stakeholders asked for, the government informed the court.
Union law minister DV Sadananda Gowda also recently announced his plan to appoint 115 high court judges to fight the rising toll of judicial vacancies expected to rise to 472 in India’s high courts by end of June.
115 new high court judges could be soon appointed, as per plans expressed by union law minister DV Sadananda Gowda, reported the Express.
Gowda said that the 453 high court judge vacancies which are there in India at the moment, will increase to 472 by the end of June.
He added that he recently met and requested Chief Justice of India TS Thakur to fill up 115 of those posts, and also said that 87 new additional judges are also in his appointment plans.
Madras high court is set to break its own judicial vacancy record by March 2016, functioning at 40 less judges than its sanctioned strength of 75 judges, reported Times of India.
Madras, along side Delhi, is the fourth largest out of 24 Indian high courts, according to the Department of Justice.
The central government increased the sanctioned strength of judges in each high court by 25 per cent in February this year, and in Madras in the last two years while 10 judges have retired none have been appointed. Justice V M Velumani, on 21 December 2013, was the last judge to be sworn in at the court.
The high court had recalled 12 prospective judge names recommended by the collegium, in an unprecedented move in February 2014, after protest by lawyers, as then reported by Legally India.
Nine names were recommended, after that recall, by the current collegium.
The 24 high courts across the country have a sanctioned strength of 1,170 judges but they are working with about 60 percent of their sanctioned strength. There are 370 vacancies in the high courts.