The Hindu : New Delhi News : State advocates write to Union Law Minister

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Friday, Aug 22, 2008
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State advocates write to Union Law Minister

J. Venkatesan

Seek uniform stand on number of permanent judges

The approved strength of judges in the Madras High Court was 49: association
Present strength is 45 judges — 30 permanent and 15 additional judges

New Delhi: Tamil Nadu Advocates Association on Thursday urged the Union Law Minister to take a uniform stand on calculating the number of permanent judges in the Madras High Court by taking into consideration the transfer of three permanent judges to other High Courts.

In a memorandum to the Minister, H.R. Bhardwaj, the association president, S. Prabhakaran, pointed out that the total approved strength of judges in the Madras High Court was 49 – 33 permanent and 16 additional. In the present strength of 45 judges (4 vacancies to be filled), 30 are permanent and 15 are additional judges.

The memorandum said “the judges are appointed to the existing vacancies in the High Court and on the transfer of any judge from one High Court to another, vacancy is created in the parent High Court. The strength of any High court is decided only on the basis of the judges actually working in that particular High Court at any point of time and judges who were transferred to another High Court cannot be deemed to be a part of the strength of the parent High Court.” It said that after three permanent judges of the Madras High Court — Justices Ashok Kumar, S.R. Singaravelu and P.D. Dinakaran–were transferred to other High Courts, their vacancies ought to have been filled by making permanent the additional judges. While so the Centre had rejected a proposal sent by the High Court to exclude them in calculating the permanent judges’ strength.

It pointed out that at present four judges, including Chief Justice A.K. Ganguly, belonged to other High Courts and they should be excluded to calculate the existing strength of permanent judges. Due to the anomaly in calculation, two additional judges were not made permanent despite vacancies and their tenure had to be extended. At least the three vacancies caused by the transfer of three judges from the High Court must be treated as permanent vacancies and the permanent strength should be increased correspondingly.

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