Over 5,000 posts in judiciary to be filled, says CJI

Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi at the interim High Court of Andhra Pradesh on Sunday, Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh N Chandrababu Naidu is also seen.

Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi on Sunday laid a foundation stone for the Andhra Pradesh High Court building at Nelapadu in the capital city of Amaravati.

The 12.1-lakh square feet judicial complex will come up in 45 acres of land to be built at a cost of Rs 819 crore.

The chief justice, who was accompanied by his wife, also unveiled the new city courts building, which will act as the interim high court for the state till the permanent structure at Nelapadu comes up.

Gogoi in his address said that he is optimistic that the 5,000 vacancies for the posts of district judges and subordinate judges will be filled very soon.

“Out of that, 75% vacancies will filled by the end of 2019. As far as high court judges are concerned there are 400 vacancies. The high courts are yet to make recommendation for the 270 posts and the remaining 130 vacancies are in the pipeline,” the Chief Justice said.

The Chief Justice observed pendency and lack of judges made the judicial dispensation system vulnerable and said that the problem could be solved.

“Pendency figures of cases are alarming. They stand at 3 crore. Out of that, 81-lakh cases are a year old and they cannot be treated as pending,” he noted.

He said that 50-lakh cases are petty cases and appealed to chief justices of high courts of all states to dispense the 50-lakh cases.

He said that the worry-some figure of 25-lakh cases that are ten years old is not a good sign.

He said that the long pending cases reflect as a black spot on the judiciary and it should be wiped out as quickly as possible with utmost commitment.

He called upon the members of bar to have more roles to play in shaping up and making the judicial system dynamic.

Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh N Chandrababu Naidu said that the state government will provide residential and transportation facility for the employees who have shifted from the common high court in Hyderabad to Amaravati.

The temporary court is now functioning in the old chief minister’s office in Vijayawada.

“The Justice City is one of the nine cities to be built under the 33,000-acre capital region. We also request the CJI to help us set up a Law university in Amaravati,” Naidu said.