High Court functioning at 50% Strength with only 25 Judges

The Patna HC is functioning with less than 50% of its full strength of 53 judges for the past several years. The current strength of 25 judges will get further depleted when Justice Vinod Kumar Sinha retires next month.

In fact, this year will see two more judges retire after Justice Sinha’s superannuation on April 22. Justice Aditya Kumar Trivedi is scheduled to superannuate on Aug 10 followed by Justice Dinesh Kumar Singh on Oct 2. The most recent judge to retire was Justice Anjana Mishra, who superannuated in February end.

Last year, the HC recommended 15 names to the Supreme Court collegium for elevated to higher judiciary in Patna. However, no information has surfaced in the public domain so far over the recommended names.

The High Court has more than 1.76 lakh cases pending for hearing before it. Out of them, 96,278 are civil cases while 80,204 are criminal cases, as per figures available on the National Judicial Data Grid updated till Mar 5.

The last time the Patna HC’s strength was increased was way back in 2003 when the older sanctioned strength of 43 judges was increased to 53, which stands to this day.

Senior advocate Yogesh Chandra Verma expressed concern over the majority post of judges lying vacant. “Since more than a year, these posts are lying vacant. Looking at Bihar’s population, there should be at least 70 working judges, but even the sanctioned positions are not getting filled. More than six months has passed that 15 names were recommended for elevation at Patna HC but nothing has happened yet,” Verma said.

Verma, who is the chairman of the coordinating committee of all three associations of High Court lawyers as well as president of the Advocates’ Association, remarked that speedy disposal is a fundamental right of a litigant.

“The bar doesn’t relish this situation. In the absence of adequate number of judges, Patna HC is perhaps passing through its worst phase. Our request to the Supreme Court collegium & the central govt would be to act quickly on the issue,” Verma said.

Another advocate Dinu Kumar said litigants are suffering due to depleted strength of judges & added that the apex court & the Centre is well aware of the abnormal rise of litigations due to the Excise Act in Bihar. “It is taking almost six months to get a bail in other matters. In such a scenario, Supreme court & the central govt must take steps to recruit judges here fast,” Kumar said.

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