Revision as of 11:00, 22 January 2016

Indian High Courts: Vacancies of Judges; pendency of cases

2015: vacancies in HCs, pendency of cases

The Times of India Jan 07 2016

Dhananjay Mahapatra

Despite best efforts to speed up disposal of cases, pendency in the high courts may spiral to a monstrous 1 crore cases by the year-end from the present 45 lakh as 24 HCs are functioning with 43% vacancies with only 599 judges as against a sanctioned strength of 1,044.

The Supreme Court, too, has five vacancies and a pendency of around 60,000 cases.With trial courts having around 2.75 crore pending cases, the total backlog of the judiciary mounts to 3.25 crore cases. Judges fear that it might touch 4 crore cases by the year-end.

The disposal of cases suffered as the process for appointment of judges came to a standstill for almost a year because of the Constitution al tug-of-war between the legislature and judiciary over the National Judicial Appointments Commission, which was scrapped by the SC, in turn reviving the collegium system. But the collegium system is expected to resume functioning only by the beginning of February after the Centre finalises the memorandum of procedure in consultation with Chief Justice T S Thakur.

But, filling 445 vacancies would take more than a year. By that time more judges would retire throwing the ju diciary into a complex web o pendency caused by the huge number of vacancies.

But this is just the begin ning of the problem. The Centre is finalising the mem orandum of procedure (MoP) for selecting HC and SC judges and it could change many rules that has been en trenched into the system since 1998, when the judici ary had decided to make itsel the sole selector of judges. The Centre feels that mer it should get as much consideration as seniority , which has been the usual norm while selecting judges for the SC. Mainly chief justices of the high courts are selected as SC judges. It also wants to insert a clause that a HC judge with outstanding merit and ability to do justice should be appointed as a SC judge ahead of the CJs of HCs.

In appointment of HC judges, the Centre wants to broad-base the process. Till now, the names have been suggested by the collegium headed by the HC CJ. But, the Centre wants all other judges should be permitted to suggest names of advocates and district judges whom they consider `outstanding'. The MoP also provides that the process for filling vacancies must commence six months prior to the retirement of a judge.

Over 40% of positions of Justices of high courts remaining vacant is simply not acceptable. One of the most fundamental duties of a state to its citizens is the delivery of justice. A situation in which justice is often too delayed to be meaningful cannot be allowed to continue. TOI has consistently campaigned for vacancies to be filled and pending cases to be urgently tackled. The stand-off between the judiciary and the executive on how judges are to be appointed has clearly not helped, but the vacancies must be filled, the sooner the better.