HCBA urges filling of vacant posts of judges in High Court

Prayagraj: Expressing concern over the increasing pendency of cases as well as problems relating to listing of cases, the Allahabad High Court Bar Association (HCBA) on Saturday demanded filling up of all the vacant posts of judges of Allahabad High Court, including its Lucknow Bench.
HCBA claimed that though the sanctioned strength of Allahabad High Court judges is 160, only 93 judges are working right now.There are 67 posts that are lying vacant, added HCBA.
Addressing the media, president of HCBA, Radha Kant Ojha urged the Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court to ensure improvement in the entire system of listing of cases, as according to him, at present, the fresh cases are being listed before the court after 10 to 60 days after their filing in the registry. Hence, in this backdrop, he demanded the Chief Justice to ensure that all the fresh cases are listed before the court after 48 hours and it must also be ensured that information in this regard is conveyed to the lawyers by the registry through SMS.
He lamented that many times the information is not conveyed through SMS, resulting in dismissal of cases by the courts due to non-appearance of counsels.He further urged the Chief Justice to ensure that all the courts start working at 10 a.m. and continue till 4 p.m.
On this occasion, secretary of HCBA, SD Singh Jadaun urged the Chief Justice to set up jurisdiction wise courts, as the same was practised earlier. Besides, he demanded that the system of display of cases also needed improvement.
Regarding the need of raising this issue, the office-bearers of HCBA clarified that lawyers being a responsible class, are always answerable to the society.
HCBA’s joint secretary press, Ashutosh Tripathi, who coordinated the programme, further informed that an emergent meeting of HCBA has been called on May 9 in this connection and future course of action would be decided in that meeting.