Jammu, July 17: In a major concern, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court is facing at least 50 percent shortage of judges at the moment, affecting service delivery and disposal of cases. And for the first time in recent times, it is working with only seven judges, six permanent and one additional, including the acting Chief Justice.
 The High Court with two benches—one each at Jammu and Srinagar—has a total strength of 14 judges. While one of its permanent judges Justice Sunil Hali was transferred to Allahabad High Court, another judge Justice Hakim Imtiyaz Hussain attainted his superannuation on Saturday.
 This time seven out of 14 posts are vacant.
 Sources said the shortage of judges is affecting service delivery. “Chief Justice sits at each bench by rotation while three judges hear the cases in routine,” they said. “The disposal rate has reduced considerably as each judge has to hear around 150 cases per day besides the supplementary list of cases.”
 More than 60000 cases are reportedly pending disposal before the two wings of the High Court. This includes 29933 miscellaneous cases.
 It has been reliably learnt that the High Court and the Jammu and Kashmir Government has already started the process of filling up the vacant posts. This has sparked off a race among lawyers and senior district judges for the vacancies.
 While filling up vacancies, the High Court is supposed to maintain the ratio of 2:1 between candidates from the Bar Association and those from the subordinate judicial service.
 According to sources, the High Court is likely to forward the names of four senior lawyers, two each from Srinagar and Jammu, and two names of senior-most District Judges, for their elevation as additional judges.
 Among the Bench Quota, two senior most judges—BL Bhat presently posted as principal district and sessions judge Srinagar and JR Kotwal, Registrar General—are likely to find their place in the list of probable.

Lastupdate on : Sun, 17 Jul 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 17 Jul 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 18 Jul 2011 00:00:00 IST