At a time when there is no mechanism in place to appoint or elevate judges to the higher judiciary, 8 high court judges have retired in a month, raising the vacancies from 384 in August to 392 this month.
According to the latest data compiled by the law ministry, as on September one, the high courts are facing a shortage of 392 judges as against the approved strength of 1,017.
As on August 1, there were 384 vacancies, while on May 1, there was a shortage of 366 judges in the high courts.
The high courts were then functioning with a working strength of 651. Thus, the 24 high courts now are functioning with a working strength of 625 judges.
According to the data prepared by the Department of Justice, while two judges retired from the Rajasthan high court, one judge each retired from the Allahabad, Calcutta,
Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala and Patna high courts.
The data does not include the retirement of Bombay High Court Chief Justice Mohit Shah on September 7.
While the collegium system -- where judges recommended names of judges for appointment and elevation to the superior judiciary -- has been done away with by the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act, the new body is yet to take shape.
The new law which scrapped the collegium system came into force on April 13 this year.
The Supreme Court has reserved its judgement on a clutch of petitions challenging the validity of NJAC.
Chief Justice of India H L Dattu's refusal to participate in the National Judicial Appointments Commission has stalled any immediate chances of constituting the new judicial appointments body.
"In response to the call from your office to attend the meeting to select two eminent persons, I have to say that it is neither appropriate nor desirable to attend the meeting or be part of the NJAC till the Supreme Court decides its validity," CJI Dattu wrote in his letter to the PM on April 25, thus leaving the new system in limbo.
Therefore, no judge can be elevated as chief justice of a high court, transferred to another high court or elevated to the Supreme Court as there is no system in place for the purpose.
With no system in place to elevate judges as chief justices of high courts, the high courts of Gauhati, Gujarat, Karnataka, Patna, Punjab and Haryana, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh and Telangana high court are at present headed by acting chief justices.
After the retirement of Justice Shah, the Bombay high court is also functioning without a full-time chief justice. But the law ministry data has not taken this into account.
According to law ministry officials, Article 223 of the Constitution states that when the office of the chief justice of a high court is vacant or when any such chief justice is, by reason of absence or otherwise, unable to perform the duties of his office, the duties shall be performed by such one of the other judges of the court as the President may appoint for the purpose.
Government had used this provision recently to appoint acting chief justices in some high courts.
To overcome shortage of judges, government had also recently sought Supreme Court's permission to give extension to additional judges in various high courts whose tenure of two years was coming to an end.
Till a new system is in place, the additional judges cannot be elevated as permanent judges in high courts.
Except for Meghalaya, Sikkim and Tripura, the rest of the 21 high courts are facing shortage of judges. The Allahabad high court had a shortage of 85 judges.
