Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court Justice Arun Bhansali on Thursday separated himself from the hearing of a PIL, requesting to give court instructions to fill all 81 vacant posts of judges in the court on time and early.
More than 50 percent of the 160 posts of Judge are vacant in the Allahabad High Court. The PIL filed by senior advocate Satish Trivedi will now be placed before the second bench, whose Chief Justice is not a member.
On Thursday, when the matter came for hearing, senior advocate SFA Naqvi appeared for the cross -examination by the PIL. Underlining the shortage of judges in the Allahabad High Court, the PIL stated that 11,55,225 cases are pending in this state with a population of 24 crores and currently there are only one judge for every 30 lakh people in which each judge is looking at the average of 14,623 pending cases.
The petition said that this High Court is in a position of Pangu in working as it is working with less than 50 percent judges, which has led to an inaccessible pile of more than 11 lakh cases.
According to the petition, even if the court reaches their full capacity of 160 judges, only one judge will be available for each 1.5 million people and each judge will have about 7,220 pending cases.
The petition suggested that the High Court should establish a system of compulsory accountability through judicial guidelines, which will require the names of at least 20 potential candidates whose names can be recommended to appoint the post of Judge six months before the post is vacant.
