Centre Must Clear Collegium Recommendations Soon : Supreme Court Raises Alarm Over High Court Vacancies

Expressing concerns about the unfilled vacancies in the High Court, the Supreme Court on Thursday (May 8) observed that the Central Government must clear the recommendations made by the Collegium for Judges' appointments without delay.

"The Central Government needs to act and ensure that the recommendations made by the Supreme Court collegium for judge appointments are cleared expeditiously," observed the bench comprising Justice Abhay S Oka and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan in its order.

The Court passed this observation raising alarm at the fact that over 7 lakh criminal appeals are pending in the High Court.

The Court noted that only 79 judges are there in Allahabad High Court (with pendency of over 2 lakh criminal appeals) out of the sanctioned strength of 160. 66 judges are functioning in the Bombay High Court out of the sanctioned strength of 94. In Calcutta High Court, the sanctioned strength is 72 but it has only 44 judges. The Delhi High Court has only 41 judges out of the sanctioned strength of 60. "As compared to the other High Court, smaller High Court like Delhi has huge pendency of criminal appeals. Therefore, this is an issue will have to be handled at different level", the Court said.

The bench referred to the recent data published by the Supreme Court which showed that 29 recommendations made by the Supreme Court Collegium since 9th November 2022 are pending with the Centre. Out of that, 4 are from 2023, 13 from 2024 and 12 from 2025. Apart from these, there are certain reiterated proposals of the Collegium which are pending.

"We hope and trust that the pending proposals will be cleared by the central government at the earliest," the bench observed.

The bench was considering the suo motu case taken to consider the issues relating to the grant of bail.

Case: IN RE POLICY STRATEGY FOR GRANT OF BAIL | SMW(Crl) No. 4/2021  

Citation : 2025 LiveLaw (SC) 671

Click here to read the order