15 HCs recommend 223 candidates for appointment as judges

New Delhi: Against the backdrop of 470 vacancies in the high courts, 15 HCs have recommended names of 223 candidates for appointment as judges.

The 15 high courts, including that of Delhi, Punjab and Haryana, Allahabad, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Gauhati and Bombay have sent their recommendations to the Centre which will in turn send them to the Supreme Court collegium, sources in the government said.

As per the established practice, the high courts send their recommendations to the Centre which, in turn, "processes" the file such as seeking Intelligence Bureau reports on the candidates and forwards them to the SC collegium for a decision.

After going through the recommendations, the SC collegium then recommends some of the names for appointment or elevation. The government, based on its feedback, either accepts the recommendation or returns it to the SC collegium with a request to reconsider.

The Centre had recently forwarded names of 78 persons from state judicial services and the bar to the SC collegium recommended by various state collegiums for appointment as judges.

The 24 high courts in the country are short of 470 judges, up from 443 in January this year, latest data show.

The rise in the vacancies comes at a time when the executive and the judiciary continue to have differences over key clauses of a document which will guide future appointments to the higher judiciary.

At the beginning of the year, the shortage was of 443 judges, while in the later part of 2015 it was 392, data available with the Law Ministry state.

As on July 1, high courts were facing a shortage of 470 judges, with the Allahabad High Court having the maximum vacancies at 82.