As on December 1, 5,984 judges' posts were vacant in the subordinate judiciary against a sanctioned strength of 22,677 across the country.
NEW DELHI: Indecisiveness on adopting a common countrywide judicial appointments exam for the subordinate judiciary has led to vacancies in lower courts, including district courts, touching an all-time high of almost 6,000.
As on December 1, 5,984 judges' posts were vacant in the subordinate judiciary against a sanctioned strength of 22,677 across the country. This does not include judges in the Supreme Court and high courts. There are currently only 16,693 judges in subordinate courts, one of the many reasons why lower courts have more than 2.61 crore pending cases, a top government source said.
The pendency in lower courts is a matter of concern with 22.57 lakh cases pending for more than 10 years, some as old as two or three decades. About 25% of cases in lower judiciary has been pending for over five years. More than 10% of these pending cases are filed by women and about 5% by senior citizens.
The all-India vacancy in subordinate judiciary is at 26% of the sanctioned strength, better than the HCs were vacancy is at 36% — about 392 judges' posts are vacant in the 24 HCs against a sanctioned strength of 1,079. The SC has 19% vacancy with six of the 31 sanctioned posts vacant.
An analysis of state-wise vacancies in the lower judiciary showed that some states has 60% of judges' positions vacant. Northeast states had the highest percentage of judges' posts vacant. Meghalaya topped this list with 60% vacancy — against a sanctioned strength of 97, the state has 58 positions vacant. It was followed by Mizoram (52%), Arunachal Pradesh (39%), Manipur (37%), Sikkim (35%), Nagaland (32%) and Tripura (29%).
Among bigger states, Bihar topped the list with 45% vacancy in sanctioned strength of 1,826 judges. Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of sanctioned posts of 3,204 judges in thelower judiciary but 1,344, or 42%, of these positions were vacant. Delhi had 40% vacancies, followed by MP (37%), Tamil Nadu (27%), Gujarat (26%) and Karnataka (25%). Each of these states have anywhere between 300to1,300 posts vacant.
(This article was originally published in The Times of India)
