50% judges’ posts vacant in Gujarat High Court, more vacancies likely ahead

At a time when growing pendency of cases has become a major challenge for the judiciary, the Gujarat High Court is grappling with an acute shortage of judges, with the situation going from bad to worse each passing month.

As of now, the high court has a sanctioned strength of 52 judges. Out of that, only 27 judges are present, which means a judicial vacancy of 48 per cent. Add to it a whopping pendency of 1.14 lakh cases, and it is clear beyond doubt why there is a need to fill these positions, especially considering the fact that the high court administration has been trying tooth and nail to bring down the backlog of cases.

Although the high court got four new judges last year, the addition was nullified with former chief justice R Subhash Reddy getting elevated to the Supreme Court, transfer of the senior-most judge Akil Kureshi to the Bombay High Court, and the retirement of Justice RH Shukla and Justice Mohinder Pal in December. Add to it the elevation and transfer of Justice MR Shah and Justice KS Jhaveri, and it is clear that the tally of judges went into negative.

Interestingly, four high court judges are going to retire in 2019, with two of them — Justice SG Shah and Justice CL Soni — retiring in the current quarter. While Justice Shah is retiring on February 1, Justice Soni is retiring on March 16. Apart from them, the two other judges who are superannuating this year are acting chief justice AS Dave on December 4 and Justice KM Thaker on September 16.

Apart from these four, three more judges will retire in 2020: Justice SR Brahmbhatt on February 20, Justice Harsha Devani on March 26, and Justice VB Mayani on May 31.

Interestingly, the Supreme Court collegium on December 5, 2018, had recommended the names of three advocates — Bhargav Karia, Megha Jani, and Sangeeta Vishen — for elevation as judges of the Gujarat High Court. The collegium, headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, had also recommended the name of Vishnukumar Patel, a judicial officer, for elevation as a high court judge. However, despite a direction to the Union government to expeditiously process the recommendations, it is yet to issue an official notification in this regard.