SC to finalise appointment of 40 High court judges

New Delhi Nov 13: In a move to increase the number of judges working in the courts the Supreme court collegium would give its nod soon for appointing 40 more judges to 9 high courts.

Sources said that 106 judges to the high courts have been appointed this year. The law ministry has forwarded recommendations to appoint 40 judges to the Supreme Court collegium.

Law ministry data revealed that the total approved strength of judges in the 24 high courts was 1,079 But however there are 413 vacancies and currently 666 judges are working in the highcourts of the country.

Currently, the Procedure for appointing judges is as follows

# the three-member high court collegium recommends names to the Law Ministry.

# The law Ministry recommends the names to supreme court along with the Intelligence Bureau report is attached.

# The supreme court collegium recommends the judges to the president and he gives his assent.

Earlier the Supreme court has said that the judiciary and not the IB, is a better judge of who should be part of the judiciary.

There are chances that the appointment may be delayed because of the current internal tussle in the supreme court over seniority and the CJI has clearly displeasure over other benches couple of times last week.

However, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has said that "as of now we have appointed 106 judges and By December 31, we will surpass the 126 figure of judges appointed in 2016 highest since 1989."