Telangana High Court Judges Count Rises from 24 To 42 With CJI's Intervention

NEW DELHI /AMARAVATI: The Telangana High Court's bench strength has been increased from 24 to 42 judges (75 percent),  a long awaited decision pending with the Centre since February 2019, thanks to the efforts of the new Chief Justice of India (CJI) NV Ramana who pushed the proposal with the Centre.

It is reported that  the CJI after taking charge on April 24, reviewed all the pending proposals and took them up with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.There are about 2.5 lakh cases pending in Telangana at present, of which 2.10 lakh are civil and another 40,000 are criminal cases. The new posts sanctioned would decrease the burden on existing judges.

Compared to different states, Telangana ranks 13th in the list. The Allahabad High Court has 160 judges, the Mumbai High Court has 94, the Punjab and Haryana has 85, the Tamil Nadu High Court has 75, the Chennai High Court has 75, the Karnataka High Court has 72, the Delhi High Court has 60, the MP has 53, the Bihar High Court has 50 and the Kerala High Court has 47 posts.

The CJI had written and had apprised that there was a need to improve infrastructure in place to accommodate 42 Judges in the High Court of Telangana to which the Law Ministry agreed and sanctioned the Bench strength to 42 judges.

The increase in sanctioned Bench strength of the Telangana High Court is with “immediate effect” and out of 42, 32 will be Permanent Judges and 10 will be Additional Judges. Out of the 42, 28 judges would be made from Bar quota and rest 14 judicial officers would be promoted under service category.

Lawyers Associations expressed their happiness with the increase in the number of judges. Union Minister Kishan Reddy also thanked the  judiciary for increasing the number of judges in the Telangana High Court, which he said would further expedite the cases in court.

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