SC Collegium Gives Nod For 8 New Allahabad HC judges

According to the official note made available on Saturday the decision was taken during a Collegium meeting held on April 2.

The judicial officers, whose names have been proposed to be elevated include Jitendra Kumar Sinha, Abdul Shahid, Anil Kumar-X, Tej Pratap Tiwari, Sandeep Jain, Avnish Saxena, Madan Pal Singh and Harvir Singh.

Incidentally, the SC Collegium’s recommendations have come at a time when concerns have been raised about the high number of vacancies in the Allahabad High Court, where more than half of the sanctioned posts remain unfilled. The court currently functions with 79 judges against a sanctioned strength of 160.

It is to be noted here that a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) plea is presently pending in the Allahabad High Court seeking a direction for the timely and expeditious filling of all the judicial vacancies in the High Court in a time-bound manner.

In a recent development, the Central government approved the transfer of three judges - Justices Yashwant Varma, Chandra Dhari Singh, and Arindam Sinha - to the Allahabad High Court. The Supreme Court, however, has directed the Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court not to assign judicial work to Justice Varma who has been in the eye of a storm following a cash discovery in an outhouse of his residence.