CJI Ranjan Gogoi's first act: High Courts, states asked to fill vacancies

Within two weeks of taking over as Chief Justice of India, Justice Ranjan Gogoi stuck to his promise of ridding judiciary of its backlog, beginning with filling up of judicial vacancies on a warpath.

Gogoi has directed all state governments and the 24 high courts to provide outer time limits to fill all 5,133 vacancies in separate cadres of district judge/additional district judge and civil judge (senior and junior divisions). The information has to be sent to secretary general of the apex court by October 31.

There are 22,036 posts in the subordinate judiciary. The current vacancy figure indicates the lower judiciary is functioning at less than 75 per cent of its sanctioned strength, as it tries to clear arrears of approximately 2.84 crore cases.

Initiating the steps suo moto on Monday, the bench of CJI Gogoi and Justice SK Kaul said, "The existence of vacancies to the extent indicated is wholly unacceptable."

The court reminded states and high courts of its January 4 2007 order, where timelines were laid down for each step involved in the process of recruitment of higher and lower judicial service officers by state public services commission. According to this timeline, a committee of two to three high court judges in each state would ensure that all existing and future vacancies be notified by March 31 and filled by October 31 the same year. With regards to filling up civil judges posts, the respective timelines were January 15 and December 31.

The CJI asked whether these timelines were adhered to, and if not, the outer time limit required to fill the posts. Besides, states also have to inform on adequacy of judicial infrastructure and manpower before the matter is heard next on November 1.

The bench asked states and high courts to suggest whether the infrastructure and manpower available would be adequate after the vacant posts get filled up.