The slow process of appointing the judges of high judiciary has badly affected the functioning of several high courts with the vacancy level in some of them going up to 45 per cent and country’s biggest high court at Allahabad is working almost with one-third of the sanctioned strength of judges.
The vacancy level in all the 21 high courts put together was around 32 per cent with 291 posts of judges lying vacant for a long time out of the sanctioned strength of 895 judges. The high courts of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Punjab and Haryana were the most affected after the Allahabad HC, according to the latest internal assessment report of the Supreme Court on vacancies and pending cases.
The vacancy position was projected by the Supreme Court on the basis of the periodic data sought by the Chief Justice of India from the high court chief justices as well as the department of justice in the law ministry.
In Allahabad high court only 66 judges were working out of the sanctioned 160 posts while 94 posts were vacant. The vacancy position in the high courts of Gujarat and Rajasthan was equally bad with 45 per cent posts of judges laying vacant with them for a long time while the Punjab and Haryana HC accounted for 35 per cent vacancies.
The other worst affected high courts are of Calcutta and Patna with each of them having 27 per cent vacancies, Andhra Pradesh 26 per cent, Bombay 25 per cent and Karnataka 20 per cent. The high courts of Madhyar Pradesh and Madras each had nine vacancies, Jharkahand and Delhi eight and Kerala and Chhattisgarh seven and six respectively.
The state-wise vacancy scenario in lower courts was worst in Bihar and Gujarat with 389 and 361 posts of judges laying vacant in the two states for a long time. The situation was equally bad in Uttar Pradesh (294 vacancies) Maharashtra (234) and Rajasthan (223).
The other states where the vacancy level in lower courts has attained alarming level, include Delhi (168), West Bengal (155), Jharkand (187), Karnataka (138), Madhya Pradesh (154), Punjab (120), Haryana (123) and Uttrakhand (127). The sanctioned strength of judges in the lower judiciary in all the states and Union Territories put together is 17,151 and out of which 3,170 posts are lying vacant. The report also cited the latest figures of pending cases with the HCs lower judiciary.