Sanctioned strength of judges is adequate: Ex-Information Commissioner

The sanctioned strength of judges in the country is adequate but the persistent vacancies in the higher judiciary is leading to a heavy backlog of court cases, former Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi has said.

For the persistent vacancy in the higher judiciary, Gandhi put part of the blame on the apex court's collegium itself, saying the truth is that the collegium has never recommended enough names to fill all vacancies.

The former member of the Central Information Commission described the recent appointments in the apex court filling all its vacancies as an exception.

Gandhi made the assertion in a letter to Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, who had recently written to the Union government suggesting constitutional amendments to increase the strength of the Supreme Court judges and to raise the retirement age of high court judges by three years.

In his letter to the CJI, Gandhi said according to his analysis during 2006 to 2012, the average vacancy has been 12 per cent in