HCS without full time chief justices set to go up to 7

NEWDELHI: Karnataka high court Chief Justice SK Muherjee will retire on October 9, taking the number of HCs without regular CJs in the country to seven.

There are 24 high courts in the country of which, the HCs of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, Kolkata, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand and Manipur are without a full-time chief justice, sources in the law ministry said.The Andhra Pradesh and Telangana high court has had an acting chief justice since July 30 last year while the Calcutta high court has an acting chief justice since 2016.

Acting chief justices were appointed to the Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand and Manipur HCs this year. Sources in the ministry confirmed there is no move to fill these vacancies in the next few days. Justice Mukherjee’s name was recommended for transfer to the Uttarakhand high court in May last year but it did not go through. He was to replace the Uttarakhand high court chief justice KM Joseph who had sought a transfer on health grounds and was recommended for transfer to the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana HC. The government is yet to take a call on the two recommendations of the Supreme Court collegium.

On October 1, vacancies of HC judges stood at 387 as against 1079 sanctioned positions. Despite a string of appointments last month, Allahabad HC is still 50 judges short of the sanctioned strength of 160 while Calcutta HC has more than half of the 72 judges’ posts vacant. Nearly a third of HC judges’ posts are still vacant in the country. The Memorandum of Procedure (MOP) stuck due to differences between the judiciary and the executive over its contours.