High courts to get 34 new judges, 14 chief justices soon

New Delhi, Sept 23 Fourteen Chief Justices and 34 new judges will be appointed to various high courts in the country as the Centre has cleared proposals in this regard.

Files pertaining to these appointments have been cleared at the highest level in the government and a notification making these appointments in various high courts is under process and will be issued soon, highly-placed sources said.

These include appointment of four judges from the resevred category, they said.

Proposals with regard to confirming 11 additional judges as permanent in high courts and transfer of 30 judges have also been cleared by the government.

This comes after seniormost judges of the high courts of Calcutta, Sikkim, Tripura, Manipur and Kerala were elevated on September 16 as chief justices of the respective high courts, days after the Supreme Court told the government that there should be no delay in filling up of the vacancies of judges.

These are in addition to the 53 fresh appointment of high court judges, besides 110 confirmations of additional judges as permanent, they said. Nearly 74 recommendations of the collegium are under process at the government's end.

Most recommendations are likely to fructify with appointments made by the end of September, barring "few cases" where the executive and the judiciary have "difference of opinion", sources said.

The process of appointing judges usually takes between 60 and 75 days. The judiciary and the executive have been at variance over appointment of judges in the recent past.

Chief Justice of India T S Thakur, who held a breakfast meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Ahmedabad recently, had said that most of the issues with the government over appointment of judges to the higher judiciary have been "sorted out".

"Most of the things have been sorted out. Some issues are there which need to be discussed. I think, may be in a week or two, these would be sorted out. Efforts are on," the CJI had said.

He also said that the long-pending Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) to govern appointment of judges to higher judiciary is expected to be ready in a week or two.

The MoP came out of the Supreme Court verdict quashing the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act (NJAC) and upholding the collegium system of appointments to higher judiciary.

PTI