India Law News reports that Indian Justice department figures indicate more than 200 posts currently remain vacant.
We learn that these vacancies as well as 3,000 other vacant judgeships at various levels officially reported a few months ago have been a cause of concern in a nation facing serious issues of discipline compounded by court delays and mounting pendency.
Here’s their report…
Justices Krishnaswami Chandru, V Ramasubramanian, S Mani Kumar, A Selvam, P R Shivakumar, G Rajasuria, Thiruneelakantam Sudanthiram, Saminathan Nagamuthu, Shunmugavel Palanivelu, K K Sasidharan, M Venugopal, V Periya Karuppiah, R Subbiah and Meenakshi Sundaram Sathyanarayanan, in that order of seniority, were sworn in as Judges.
But it would make little difference to the 26.41 per cent vacant judgeships in 21 High Courts across India.
In actual numbers, the 21 High Courts between them were reported by the department to have 234 of 886 High Court judgeships vacant.
The Subordinate Courts with a sanctioned strength of 16,721 had 2,998 vacancies and the Supreme Court had seven posts vacant out of 31, but two Judges have retired since.
The Indian courts between them are estimated to have as many as 30.76 million cases pending, which not only gives a glimpse of the unresolved conflicts citizens live with, but also a perspective on vacant judgeships the society can hardly afford.
The issue has been acknowledged by the government at the highest level, with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh having stressed the urgency of filling up Court vacancies.
?The existing vacancies in High Courts are quite high in number and need to be filled up urgently,? Dr Singh told a mid-August Joint Conference of Chief Ministers and Chief Justices.
Dr Singh stressed ?quickly filling up these posts,? and appointing ?meritorious individuals.? His reference to merit reflected yet another serious concern pertaining to a judiciary whose image has taken a beating now and then even though it appoints its own.
Taint has become another cause of concern, with Judges sometimes allegedly involved in misbehaviour that can hardly inspire confidence in their judging, not to mention the utter absence of a transparent system of accountability.
Law and Justice Minister M Veerappa Moily, briefing journalists a few weeks ago, spoke of government desire to steer clear of tainted persons in appointment of judges.
Efforts to fill vacancies are supposed to begin six months before a retirement is due.
But Dr Moily disclosed some time ago that at least eleven High Courts were yet to initiate proposals to fill up all the posts ?that were vacant in 2007.? The High Courts : Allahabad, Andhra Pradesh, Bombay, Calcutta, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala and Punjab and Haryana.
Topping the list of 21 High Courts in vacancies was Patna with 20 out of 43 or 46.51 per cent posts vacant, official figures showed.
Allahabad, with 72 of 160 or 45 per cent posts vacant, came next.
They were followed percentage point-wise by the High Courts of Chhattisgarh, 44.44, Andhra Pradesh, 38.78, Gujarat, 35.71, Punjab and Haryana, 32.35, Jharkhand, 30, Calcutta, 29.31, and Orissa, 27.27, all of them above the national average.
On the next rung were Rajasthan, 25.00, Jammu and Kashmir, 21.43, Madhya Pradesh, 13.95, Kerala, 13.16, Gauhati, 12.50, Bombay, 12.00, Uttarakhand,11.11, Himachal Pradesh, 09.09, Delhi, 08.33, Karnataka, 7.32, Madras, 6.67, and Sikkim, nil.
Ministry officials explain that senior judicial appointments are a domain of a Supreme Court collegium taken over through a 1993 judgement in the Supreme Court Advocates on Record Association v. Union of India.
If Judges appointing Judges was expected to improve the quality of jurisprudence, many have been disappointed, especially given the opacity of the process in place. Law scholars say what is sorely needed is transparency.
http://www.indlawnews.com/Newsdisplay.aspx?70458a8f-4cb8-4972-8c29-042c3c6764ef
