PIL over vacant posts of CJ, judges: HC reserves order 

HYDERABAD: A division bench of the High Court on Monday reserved its order on the maintainability of a PIL case filed by Sarasani Satyam Reddy, senior counsel of the High Court, who questioned the inaction of the Supreme Court on filling the post of the chief justice and the posts of scores of judges in the Hyderabad High Court.

The bench of Justice V Ramasubramanian and Justice J Uma Devi was dealing with the PIL which sought appointment of permanent chief justice and judges to the High Court for Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states. He sought directions to the authorities in Delhi to hasten the process of filling up the said vacancies.

The bench made it clear that it would pronounce its order only with regard to the issue whether the PIL was maintainable or not.

The petitioner's counsel urged the court to declare the non-appointment of the chief justice to the High Court by the Centre and the Supreme Court even 22 months after the superannuation of the previous chief justice as unconstitutional and in violation of Article 216 of the Constitution. As against the sanctioned strength of 61 judges, only 27 judges are holding the office resulting in 60 percent vacancy. Non-appointment of judges to the sanctioned strength was crippling the functioning of the High Court, he pointed out.

The counsel representing the Centre urged the court to defer hearing.

After hearing both sides, the bench reserved its order.

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