While the Bombay bench of the Bombay High Court is working with around 25 judges, the situation is worse in other benches like the Aurangabad bench, the Nagpur bench and the Goa bench, where the number of judges are even less than half the sanctioned strength. What is worse is that though almost everybody in the court laments the shortage, there is no move towards fresh appointments.

In fact, there have been no fresh appointments in the Bombay High Court for at least two years! The last one being the appointment of Justice R J Kochar, around two years back.

The Bombay High Court has 42 permanent judges and 18 additional judges. On Tuesday, three additional judges took their oaths as permanent judges. The bad situation got critical last month with the elevation of two judges Justice S NVariava and Justice Ashok Agarwal as Chief Justices of Delhi and Madras respectively. Also, Justice Ashok Desai was transferred to Allahabad some time earlier. Justice V R Datar resigned a few months back and a couple of more judges will retire by the year end. Justice Y S Jahagirdar and Justice A Y Sakhare had resigned early this year.

Sources in the high court confide that the Bombay High Court had recommended names of six advocates from the Bar Association and of around four to five judges from the lower judiciary over a year ago with no action. As a result, there is a frustrating backlog in the courts. Most of the judges today are handling admission matters with cases of as early as 1960s still pending disposal.

While even a decade ago, it was possible to obtain disposal on writ petitions within at least two to three years, it takes at least 10 years now. First appeals are heard in 15 years while criminal convictions whether on bail or not are obtained in six to 10 years.

The high courts are alsoflooded with public interest litigations and writ petitions under article 226 and article 227, many of them in appeals against tribunal orders, small causes cases including the Rent Act.

While judges here in the Bombay bench refuse to expedite matters which are not urgent, nearly 50,000 petitions are pending in the Aurangabad bench which deals with cases pertaining to 11 districts and has six of the sanctioned strength of nine judges. With certain areas found preferential to Aurangabad, this too could be a reason for the shortage of judges here. Advocates believe it would be better if the strength of the bench is increased to 12 from the existing but incomplete strength of nine.

The situation is similar at Nagpur where a delegation of advocates had met the Bar Association to persuade the Chief Justice that more judges be appointed. They have less than half the strength of 12 judges.

One of the reasons for the non appointment of the judges who have been recommended by the Bombay High Court could be thatthe President, K R Narayanan is keen that the judges be above 45 years of age.