STRENGTH OF JUDGES DOWN TO 1/3RD AS PATNA HC AWAITS NOD TO FILL THE VOID
PATNA: The Patna high court, with a sanctioned strength of 53 judges, will be left with just 18 by September end if new judges are not appointed by then in the 105year-old institution, according to data accessed by HT.
The current strength of judges at the HC is 19 and one of them is due to retire by next month’s end.
This year, according to senior officials in the court, the Patna HC collegium has sent four recommendations comprising a total of 35 names to reduce the vacancies, but appointments are still awaited. These names have been recommended during the tenure of incumbent Chief Justice Sanjay Karol, who was the last appointment to the Patna HC, in November 2019.
The number of vacancies, which stood at 24 in August 2019, when Justice AP Shahi was the Chief Justice, is set to rise to 35, including the one falling vacant in September 2021.
The issue of rising vacancies was also raised during a function of centenary year celebrations of the Patna HC in 2016 before PM Narendra Modi, who was the chief guest, by the then Chief Justice of India TS Thakur.
PATNA: The Patna high court, which has a sanctioned strength of 53 judges, will be left with just 18 by September end if new judges are not appointed by then in the 105year-old institution, according to data accessed by HT.
The current strength of judges at the HC is 19 and one of them is due to retire by next month’s end.
This year, according to senior officials in the court, the Patna HC collegium has sent four recommendations comprising a total of 35 names to reduce the vacancies, but appointments are still awaited.
These names have been recommended during the tenure of incumbent Chief Justice Sanjay Karol, who was the last appointment to the Patna HC, in November 2019. The last three recommendations comprising 20 names were made since July 16, including one on August 2.
The number of vacancies, which stood at 24 in August 2019, when Justice AP Shahi was the Chief Justice, is set to rise to 35, including the one falling vacant in September 2021.
In August 2019 also, Justice Shahi had recommended 24 names, including 15 from the bar and nine from the service, but all were remitted back by the law department vide its letter dated September 3, 2020, said an official.
Thereafter, incumbent Chief Justice Sanjay Karol sent the first recommendation comprising four names on January 15, 2021, and followed it up with another recommendation with 11 more names on February 11, 2021.
Later, the HC collegium recommended eight names from the bar with representation to all communities. This, according to an official, included names of three from other backward castes (OBC), one each from scheduled caste (SC), a Muslim and a woman, and three from general category, to give it a more balanced look.
“Earlier, the names recommended by the HC collegium and forwarded by the Centre were almost accepted, but the final warrant of appointment is issued by the President only after a go-ahead from the ministry of law and justice. In view of falling strength of judges in Patna HC, we are hopeful new names will soon be cleared,” the official quoted above said.
The issue of rising vacancies was also raised during the closing function of centenary year celebrations of the Patna HC in 2016 before Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was the chief guest, by the then Chief Justice of India TS Thakur. The Patna HC then had 14 vacancies, while Thakur had pointed out that 468 of around 900 posts of HC judges were vacant across the country at that point of time.
Senior advocate Vinod Kanth said the delay was sad, as it was only contributing to big pendency of cases in an already overburdened judiciary.
In July this year, Yogesh Chandra Verma, president of the coordination committee of the three associations of lawyers, had said there were 69,109 writ petitions pending for disposal. The total number of pending cases in the High Court is estimated to be around 2.13 lakh, up from 1.78 lakh in December 2020.
In fact, in view of growing pendency and fresh filing of cases, the bench of Justice Chakradhari Sharan Singh had asked the chief secretary what the government was doing to prevent filing of frivolous cases.
“The process (of appointment of judges) needs to be made smoother to avoid delays, which affect justice system. At present, a three-judge collegium of the HC sends its recommendations to the SC, where another three-judge collegium either accepts the names or rejects. The names accepted by SC collegium are then forwarded to the ministry of law and justice. If the ministry approves, it is sent to the President for warrant, else it is returned to the SC. If the SC collegium reiterates it, the ministry has to accept it, but it can be delayed,” Kanth said.
Former advocate general and senior advocate PK Shahi said Bihar never had such poor strength of judges as far as he could remember.
“The strength has now perhaps fallen lower than even Jharkhand, resulting in huge pendency and delay in disposal of cases. Even for bail matters, one has to wait for 8-10 months. The litigants are suffering. Even hearing of writ petitions is getting delayed. We cannot comment on why the recommendations are being rejected or delayed, but it has certainly affected delivery of justice,” he said.
According to Supreme Court website, of the total 1,098 judges posts in high courts in the country, 455 are vacant as on August 1, 2021.
Apart from Patna high court, there are large number of positions vacant in high courts of Andhra Pradesh, Calcutta, Madhya Pradesh, Allahabad, Punjab and Haryana and Rajasthan, according to the data on SC website.
Former additional solicitor general (ASG) SD sanjay said, “Even urgent cases and those related to development issues are suffering. Now, the HC collegium has also started taking a balanced view by accommodating all sections, as happened in case of the last recommendation. Hopefully, the SC will now start clearing the names, as delay is hurting the cause of justice delivery.”
The strength has now perhaps fallen lower than even Jharkhand, resulting in huge pendency and delay in disposal of cases.
PK SHAHI, Former advocate general and senior advocate