Best Lawyers in Chandigarh Vacant judicial positions, backlog of cases haunt lower courts in Punjab, Haryana

Satya Prakash
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, November 1

As Punjab and Haryana struggle to fill up judicial vacancies in subordinate courts, pendency of cases continues to haunt the two states.

 

According to documents submitted in the Supreme Court, as on July 30 this year 89 posts of judges in trial courts were vacant in Punjab where the sanctioned strength of judges stood at 675. Of the 89 vacant judicial posts, 12 were at the level of district judge while the remaining 77 belonged to the civil judge cadre. This explains why almost 5.18 lakh cases were pending in Punjab as on April 30, 2017.

 

Similarly, as on July 30 this year, 174 posts of judges in trial courts were vacant in Haryana against the sanctioned strength 659 judges. Of these vacant judicial posts, 23 were at the level of district judge while the rest belonged to the civil judge cadre. The result—more than 5.59 lakh cases were reported pending in Haryana as on April 30, 2017.

 

Interestingly, the Union Territory of Chandigarh presents a completely different picture as no judicial posts were reported to be vacant as on July 30, 2019. None of the 10 posts at the district judge level and 20 posts at the level of civil judge was vacant, the Supreme Court was informed recently. As on April 30, 2017, Chandigarh had a pendency of 4,214 cases only.

 

Concerned over huge vacancies in subordinate courts across India, the top court on October 22 last year taken suo motu cognizance of the problem and asked high courts to submit reports on recruitment processes undertaken by them, the schedule followed, measures needed to expedite it and infrastructural requirements.

 

According to official figures, 5133 of the total 22036 posts of subordinate court judges were vacant across India and information collected by the Supreme Court Registry from different high courts indicated that recruitment process to fill up 4180 posts was underway.

 

Even in the case of Punjab and Haryana, the Supreme Court has been informed that the process for selection of judges to fill up the vacancies was already underway.

 

On January 17, the Supreme Court had asked the Punjab and Haryana High Court to fill all the vacancies in subordinate courts in the two states by February 28.

 

As vacancies still remained unfilled, the Supreme Court on October 24 directed all the high courts, states and union territories to file fresh status reports giving details of the progress made in filling up of vacancies of judicial officers in trial courts and construction of courtrooms and residential units for judges and posted the matter for further hearing on November 6.

 

A Bench of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, Justice SA Bobde and Justice SA Nazeer asked senior advocates Shyam Divan, KV Vishwanathan, Vijay Hansaria and advocate Gaurav Agrawal – who are assisting it as amicus curiae in the matter—to inform it about the “progress made by various states in filling up of judicial vacancies and building courts and related infrastructure.

 

 

Best Lawyers in Chandigarh High Court