A Parliamentary Panel related to Home Ministry  has expressed surprise that the government was not addressing “the primary issue” of filling up a large number of vacancies existing in various courts including the High courts while it was  trying to alter the basic tenets of  riminal jurisprudence. In an important observation, the Parliamentary Standing  Committee on Home Affairs, examining the code of Criminal Procedure  (Amendment Bill), wondered why the government did not fill up the court vacancies even though it claimed that one of the reasons for bringing up the Bill was “to reduce the pendency of cases before courts”.

“As per the statistics available with the Committee, the number of sanctioned posts in the High courts is 721 against which number of judges in position is 610, leaving 111 vacancies of judges in various high courts”, the committee said. The Committee cited the vacancies in the courts to the government while deliberating on the issue of doing away with summons procedure and compulsory trial of summons cases. As in the High courts, in the lower courts too, only 11,840  are in position as against  the total sanctioned strength of magistrates and judges  of 14,641 , leaving vacancies of 2,801 judicial officials.

Surprised at such a large number of vacancies as against the workload, the Committee said, “The government should  address the functioning of the courts with full capacity”.