Law ministry mulls judges’ talent pool to fill vacancies
NEW DELHI: To speed up the process of filling up vacancies, the Ministry of Law and Justice has decided to have a talent pool of eligible candidates so that vacancies can be filled sooner.
At present, there is no dedicated mechanism for processing the proposals for filling vacancies of Supreme Court and High Courts judges and this delays appointments. The ministry has now mooted a dedicated cell in SC and HCs registry to assist initiation of the proposals.
It is also suggested that the cell be made responsible for collecting/collating information and maintaining computerised database of eligible people. “The cell may also be made responsible for obtaining views/comments of experts on their quality of work and also for obtaining views from various stakeholders. This would ensure objectivity in the selection process,” an officer said.
Ministry has decided that the process of filling-up vacancies, will be initiated with the help of the talent pool, except in the case of vacancies which cannot be anticipated like due to resignation or death, well in advance so that gap between occurrences of a vacancy and its filling in not more than a month. Efforts would be made to declare the list of selected candidates at least six months before the date of occurrence of the vacancy.