CHENNAI: Nearly one-third of judges’ posts are lying vacant in Madras High Court. With 11 judges retiring in 2022, the strength of the judges has come down to 53 against the sanctioned strength of 75.
As per the recent data released by the Union Law Ministry, Madras HC has 43 permanent judges and 10 additional judges against the sanctioned strength of 56 and 19 judges respectively.
After the transfer of former CJ Sanjib Banerjee to the HC of Meghalaya, Madras High Court had three Acting Chief Justices and one of them, Munishwar Nath Bhandari, was later elevated to the post of Chief Justice.
After his superannuation in September 2022, Justice M Duraiswamy was appointed the Acting CJ and then after his retirement, the current ACJ Raja took over the office.
The collegium of the Supreme Court had recommended the transfer of Justice T Raja to the High Court of Rajasthan and the appointment of Odisha CJ S Muralidhar to the Madras HC, but the Union Law Minister is yet to take a decision on it.
That a chartered High Court, having a bench at Madurai, is being administered by the ACJs for most of the duration in 2022 is notable.
A delegation of the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry with DMK MP and senior advocate P Wilson and others had made a representation to the Union Law Minister in February 2022, urging him to expedite the process of filling vacancies.
According to the Bar Council of TN and PY, about 5.77 lakh cases are pending with the Madras HC of which 1.02 lakh cases are pending for more than a decade.
Commenting about the issue, advocate Manoj Selvaraj, who is practising at the Supreme Court and Madras HC, said the act of delaying the judges’ appointment shows it is evident that the Union Government’s influence on judiciary appointments.
“In the case of Justice Muralidhar, recommendation to transfer him to MHC was made in September but is yet to be accepted by the Centre,” the advocate told DTNext.
Visit news.dtnext.in to explore our interactive epaper!
Download the DT Next app for more exciting features!
Click here for iOS
Click here for Android