NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court Wednesday slammed the Center for the chronic delay in processing the names sent by the superior courts and forwarding them to the SC collegiate to recommend the appropriate ones for appointment as judges of the HCs, which are operating with 40% vacancies even as they lament under a huge slope.
The court noted cases where the government has sat on the names recommended by the SC college for appointment as HC judges for the past year and a half.
A bank of CJI SA Bobde and Magistrates Sanjay Kishan Kaul Y Sanjeev khanna found that the 25 HCs had an authorized staff of 1,080 judges, but up to 417 positions were vacant (39%). What disturbed the bank was the fact that the HCs proposed up to 103 names that were lying to the Center.
Judge Kaul, who had prepared a chart showing the vacancies and outlined the reasons for the delay, told the attorney general KK Venugopal that unless the government acted within a term and processed the proposals sent by the HCs and sent them to the SC collegiate for their consideration, followed by the recommendation of suitable people For the appointment, the problem of the delay in the administration of justice in the CS would not be solved.
The SC said that the Center routinely sat on the names recommended by the SC college, which created uncertainty in the minds of the people whose names were submitted to be appointed as HC judges. The court said that it would be better to set the deadline for the completion of each component of the process of appointing judges and requested the response of the Center in two weeks.
On video: vacancies in HC: the government sits in the elections of judges for 1.5 years, says SC
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