Plea For Filling Up Of Vacancies & Sanctioned Strength of HC Cannot Be Taken On Judicial Side: Madhya Pradesh HC Disposes PIL

The Bench of Chief Justice Mohammad Rafiq and Justice Prakash Shrivastava further observed,

"It is also not deemed appropriate to take up the issue regarding increase in the sanctioned strength on judicial side as so far not even the available vacancies have been filled up".

The Plea before the Court

The petitioners (Dr. M. A. Khan & Amarjeet Singh Panwar) filed the instant Writ Petition in "Public Interest", inter alia, praying for a direction to the respondents to fill up the vacancies of Judges in the High Court of Madhya Pradesh and also to increase the sanctioned strength of the Judges of Madhya Pradesh High Court.

The petitioners, in the writ petition, stated that as against the sanctioned strength of 53 there are presently 28 Judges working and out of them 8 Judges are due to retire in the year 2021.

Court's Order

The Court, apart from aforementioned observations, said,

"Having regard to the fact that 7 names from the Bar and 6 from Service have already been recommended and are under process, we do not deem it appropriate to entertain the present writ petition."

Thus, the Petition was dismissed.

In related news, the Central Government on Thursday (31^st December) notified the appointment of Justice Mohammad Rafiq, the (then) Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court, as the new Chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court.

The Centre has also notified the appointment of Justice Sanjay Yadav, (then) a Judge of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, as a Judge of the Allahabad High Court.

It may be noted that with the appointment of Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia, Judge of the Uttarakhand High Court, as the Chief Justice of the Gauhati High Court, all the 25 High Courts in the country now have regular Chief Justices.

Case title - Dr. M. A. Khan and others v. Union Of India and others [WP-20694-2020]

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