September 20,2017:

President Ram Nath Kovind has cleared appointments for Allahabad, Calcutta High Courts.

To reduce large number of vacancies in the higher judiciary, President Ram Nath Kovind on Tuesday cleared appointment of the 25 judges in the two High Courts.

Issuing separate notifications, Law Ministry has notified appointment of the 19 Additional judges in Allahabad HC and six in Calcutta HC.

Additional judges usually have a term of two years and are elevated to rank of a permanent judge based on their performance.

Allahabad HC which is largest in terms of the Bench strength, has an approved strength of 160 judges. But until Tuesday’s appointment, it was functioning with 91 judges.

Calcutta HC, which is India’s oldest, too has a shortage as a Court, until now, had been functioning with 31 judges against an approved strength of 72 judges.

These are first set of the fresh appointments to HC after Justice Dipak Misra took over as the CJI last month.

Supreme Court’s Collegium has to decide on the 60 recommendations from the 13 High Courts across the country.

These include 36 recommendations for the appointment as judges and 25 candidates to be elevated from additional judges to the permanent judges.

Collegium has to take a call on Appointing of the Full-Time Chief Justices for High Courts of the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, Calcutta, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand and Manipur are currently headed by the Acting Chief Justices.