Jammu, June 15: Facing severe crises due to shortage of judges, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court is expected to get six more judges by August this year.
Newly appointed Chief Justice of the State High Court, Justice MM Kumar, Friday hinted that the decision on the panel of six judges is expected by August.
“If everything goes well we can expect that the six judges, proposed by a collegium of the State High Court, are appointed by August this year helping us to deliver better,” Justice Kumar said while sharing concern of the lawyers, who accorded a warm welcome to him on his maiden visit to Jammu.
He said that shortage of judges in the High Court is a national phenomenon. “There are several High Courts where the actual number of sitting judges is much lower than the sanctioned strength,” he said.
Justice MM Kumar of the Punjab and Haryana High Court was recently elevated and appointed as the Chief Justice of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court.
The High Court is presently reeling under shortage of judges. The State is awaiting final nod of its proposal to appoint 6 additional judges from both Bench and the Bar quota, for which the names have already been cleared by a collegium.
As per the reports the collegium has recommended the names of five advocates and two judges to fill up the existing vacancies. However, one of the advocates, recommended by the High Court, died recently leaving only six names in the panel.
Those recommended by the HC include Special Judge CBI Court BL Bhat and Registrar General Janak Raj Kotwal from the Bench Quota. Additional Advocate General Ali Muhammad Magray, designated senior lawyer Dheeraj Singh Thakur, Advocate Tashi Robertson of Leh are from the Bar quota.
As per an internal survey, about 76895 cases are pending in the both the wings of Jammu and Kashmir High Court. Out of 76895 cases, 41887 are main cases and 35008 miscellaneous.
This exercise was conducted on the directions of former Acting Chief Justice Virender Singh recently to ascertain the actual pendency.

Lastupdate on : Fri, 15 Jun 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Fri, 15 Jun 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sat, 16 Jun 2012 00:00:00 IST