Rajasthan HC judges’ strength below 50% of sanctioned posts

JAIPUR: The number of sanctioned posts of judges at the Rajasthan High Court was increased from 40 to 50 four years ago, but at present the combined strength at its principal seat in Jodhpur and the bench in Jaipur is 24.
With the continuous decrease in the number of judges, the pending cases have increased up to 4 lakh till April 2019. Former judges of the HC termed it an “alarming situation” and urged on the need of filling the vacant posts for the early disposal of cases.
Presently, the HC has 24 judges, including the chief justice, which is below 50% of the total sanctioned posts. Former judges said that this is the reason why the petitioners get justice very late in cases related to education, services, recruitment etc.
Four years ago, the HC had 40 judges when the sanctioned posts were increased to 50. Since then, there has been retirements and also elevation of some of the judges from Rajasthan as chief justice in other states.
“It is an alarming situation that number of judges is less than 50% of the total sanctioned posts. Thus, the pendency of cases is increasing with each passing day. I believe it is must to fill up these vacancies as early as possible. If the HC collegium had sent some names out of which not everyone was selected by the collegium of the Supreme Court, action should be taken towards resending the names,” said Justice V S Dave while talking to TOI on Saturday.
The situation is that even after the retirement of two HC judges, including Justice K S Ahluwalia and Justice Banwar Lal Sharma in May, the number of judges has remained only 24. Besides, there are few more judges who are on the verge of retirement in the next couple of months.
“There is of course a need to fill up posts in next couple of months. Even if Supreme Court collegium had considered a few names, only out of the number of names given to them by the high court collegium, I would request that the high court collegium, including the chief justice and two senior most judges, should select and send more names,” said retired Justice Shiv Kumar Sharma.
According to the sources, Rajasthan High court got merely 5 judges in the past two years.