The court had on October 22 taken suo motu cognizance of the large number of vacancies in the lower courts and sought information on this from state governments and High Courts.

Taking strong exception to the delay in filling up vacancies in the subordinate judiciary across the country, the Supreme Court on Thursday cautioned state governments and High Courts that it would take over the process unless the recruitments are expedited.

“We are telling all high courts and states that we are keeping you under constant gaze. If you cannot fill vacancies then we will take over and have a centralised exam. We want our judges to be in place,” said a bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices U U Lalit and K M Joseph.

The court had on October 22 taken suo motu cognizance of the large number of vacancies in the lower courts and sought information on this from state governments and High Courts.

“All high courts and public service commission (agency that holds exams) have been very casual. There are hordes of applications by candidates who are deserving and what are you doing,” the CJI asked and added that there was no progress in addressing the issue till the apex court began monitoring it.

“This case is of importance for judiciary and not related to an individual,” the CJI said and rued that “the level of indifference is phenomenal”.

Citing instances, the bench said Delhi had taken more than a year to fill up just 200 vacancies while in Haryana, the examination held in 2015 was cancelled and the fresh advertisement issued in 2018 attracted a huge rush due to which the official website collapsed on the last date of application.

During the tenure of the then Chief Justice of India J S Khehar, the Centre mooted a national level exam to fill up the over 5,000 vacancies in the subordinate judiciary, highlighted as one of the main reasons for the huge pendency of cases. However, some of the state High Courts were not in favour and the matter went into cold storage after CJI Khehar retired.

The court has now sought the presence of the Registrar Generals and authorised representatives of some of the states. The matter will be heard again on November 15.