NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Law and Justice late on Monday issued the notification of the appointment of 37 new high court judges made by the Supreme Court Collegium system late on Sunday evening in continuation of the appointment of 26 high court Judges in Allahabad, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Guwahati high courts on Friday.
According to an official statement of the Ministry of Law and Justice, so far 138 appointments in various high courts of the country have been made compared to earlier record of 126 high court appointments, which were made in 2016. In 2021, the appointments tally in the high court was 120 in addition to the nine appointments, made in the Supreme Court.
Among Sunday’s 38 High Court judge appointments, 11 appointments have been made in the High Court of Punjab and Haryana. Those appointed as High Court Judges in Punjab and Haryana are Nidhi Gupta, Sanjay Vashisth, Tribhuvan Dahiya, Namit Kumar, Harkesh Manuja, Aman Chaudhary, Naresh Singh, Harsh Bunger, Jagmohan Bansal, Deepak Manchanda and Alok Jain.
The official communication claimed that the appointment process in the higher judiciary has been put on the fast track. These appointments of High Court judges have been made at a time when 59,55,907 cases are pending in the High Courts of various states, as per the government’s recent reply made in the Upper House of Parliament.
Besides all this, the available government record says that appointments of 769 new judges and 619 additional judges have been made in various High Courts between 2014 and 2022. The government also claims to have increased the sanctioned strength of judges in the high courts from 906 in 2014 to 1,108 now.