The Centre on Thursday told the Supreme Court that High Courts have made 146 recommendations for appointment of judges, which are under consideration.
As on November 30, 2022, sanctioned strength of high court (HC) judges is 1108 and working strength is 776 resulting into 332 vacancies. The Centre said, however, the rate of rejection of names recommended by HCs at Supreme Court level is 25 per cent which is very high.
In a status report submitted in the apex court, the Centre said HCs are required to make recommendations for the remaining 186 vacancies which constituted 56 per cent of vacancies.
As many as 146 proposals -- 92 (unfilled vacancies under Bar quota) + 54 (unfilled vacancies under Service quota) -- are at various stages of processing between the government (118 proposals) and Supreme Court (28 proposals), it said.
“Out of 118 proposals with the government, 8 proposals were recommended by the SCC (Supreme Court Collegium) for the first time, 30 proposals were rejected by the SCC and to be remitted to the high courts and 80 fresh proposals have been recently received from high court collegiums. Out of 28 proposals with SCC, 25 proposals are for reconsideration of SCC and 3 proposals deferred by the SCC," it said.
The Centre said a total of 43 HC judges would retire during the period from December 1, 2022 to May 31, 2023 and as per Memorandum of Procedure (MoP), HC collegium is required to make recommendation at least 6 months in advance of occurrence of vacancy.
It added on December 1, 2022, the HCs should have made recommendations for a total of 229 unfilled vacancies. “So far no recommendation for these 229 vacancies, including 43 prospective vacancies, have been received”, it said.
Published 08 December 2022, 15:59 IST