SC Collegium Recommends Record 68 Names For Judgeship
By A Special Correspondent
First publised on 2021-09-04 05:21:15
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The Supreme Court collegium today recommended 68 names for
judgeships in different high courts of the country. This is a welcome and
much-needed development as the judicial system is groaning due to a backlog of
cases which in turn are due to more than 50% vacancy in several high courts. Among
the names passed are 44 senior advocates and 24 judicial officers. These names
are for appointments in the HCs in Allahabad, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Jammu
and Kashmir, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Punjab and Haryana, Kerala,
Chhattisgarh and Assam.
This recommendation in one go assumes great importance as the previous collegium
headed by former CJI S A Bobde could recommend only 46 names for nine HCs in
its entire tenure of 18 months. Differences between the members of the previous
collegium, comprising former CJI S A Bobde, Justice N V Ramana and Justice R F
Nariman had led to an impasse. It is expected that the present collegium will
speed up appointments if names are forwarded to it by high court collegiums.
It needs to be noted that there is a backlog of over 60 lakh cases in
HCs. Most of the HCs are functioning well below their capacity. Hence, appointment
of judges is vital. Further, the government is yet to take any decision in
appointing retired judges on ad-hoc basis to clear the backlog even after the
Supreme Court has decided to invoke Article 224A to facilitate such
appointments. It has to be recognized that the backlog is huge and with the
number of new cases being filed, is not likely to be cleared if the temporary measure
of appointing ad-hoc judges is not taken. For the judicial system to dispense
timely justice, it is necessary that the backlog is cleared and that is only
possible if the HCs function at full strength and ad-hoc judges are appointed to
help clear it speedily.
