CJI Khehar to Govt: Now is the time to Appoint Judges on war footing

March,21,2017:

As on date 24 HCs have a sanctioned strength of 1,079 Judges but are but are constrained to work with only 624, with more than 40% vacant posts.

Chief Justice of India J S Khehar has said that now appointments to constitutional courts needed to be undertaken on a war footing since the memorandum of procedure (MoP) for appointment of judges is finally in place.

Earlier before a bench headed by then CJI T S Thakur, the ugly stalemate over the provisions of MoP continued as both the executive and the judiciary refusing to budge from their stated positions primarily on National Security Clause.

As a result the Centre Govy repeatedly returned several names recommended by the collegium headed by Chief Justice TS Thakur.

However after Justice Khehar took over as CJI, things started to settle down and the MoP got finalised.

The bench of Justices Khehar, D Y Chandrachud and Sanjay Kishan Kaul made an observation that now appointment of judges will have to be undertaken on war footing.

Two petitions in this regard, which were bunched with many more were disposed of by the SC on Monday .