Hyderabad: Advocates working in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are irked by the delay in appointing a permanent Chief Justice to the Hyderabad High Court.
They are planning to launch an agitation if the Central government fails to appoint a permanent Chief Justice by July 31, 2018, which will mark two years of the court being with a permanent chief justice. There are other vacancies of judges that also have to be filled.
Mr C. Damodar Reddy, president of the Telangana High Court Advocates’ Association, says that as of now there are 3.5 lakh cases pending in the High Court.
There are currently 29 judges, including the Acting Chief Justice. The sanctioned strength is of 61 judges. Since May 2015 not a single judge has been appointed to fill the 32 vacancies. The number of pending cases increases day by day because of the lack of judges to hear them.
He said that first app-eals with regard to civil disputes and land acquisition cases are pending since 1987 and writ petitions since 1999.
He said there were news reports in February this year that the Supreme Court collegium has cleared Justice T. Radhakrishnan’s candidature for the post of Chief Justice of the High Court, but the government has not cleared the appointment.
Mr Ramanna Dora, president of the AP High Court Advocates’ Association, said that due to delay in appointment of judges the members of the Bar face many problems, which results in denial of justice to litigants.
The Association said that an action plan to agitate for the appointment of the Chief Justice and other judges in the High Court will be chalked out after July 30, 2018.
