362 Positions of Judges in 25 High Courts Across Country Remain Vacant: Govt in Parliament
The Wire Staff
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New Delhi: The country’s largest high court, the Allahabad high court, continues to work with only half the strength of sanctioned posts for judges, data submitted to Parliament by the union ministry of law and justice has shown.
In a written reply to Congress MP Vivek Tanka, minister of state for law and justice Arjun Ram Meghwal stated this July 31 that while the sanctioned post for judges in the Allahabad high court is 160 – the highest in the country, as of this July 25 though, it is functioning at a working strength of only 80 judges.
The minster gave details on 25 high courts including the Bombay high court and Punjab and Haryana high court – two other large high courts with a sanctioned strength of 94 and 85 judges respectively, where too the working strength is currently 67 and 49 respectively.
In the Calcutta high court, against the sanctioned strength of 72, only 48 judges are currently functioning. Significantly, barring only two high courts – Meghalaya and Sikkim – all other high courts are working below capacity.
Of the total strength of 1,122 judges across 25 high courts, only 760 posts have been filled so far, and the rest of 362 positions have remained vacant.
Even high courts with smaller strength, say, Tripura and Manipur high courts, there are one and two posts of judges vacant respectively.
The reflection of the long-pending vacancy of judges’ posts on cases can be seen in the data provided in another written reply by the minister. As of this July 25, a whopping 63,29,222 cases are pending in the high courts, he replied to a question posed by DMK MP Kanimozhi.
The minister also gave the data of pending cases in the Supreme Court (86,723 cases) and in the district and subordinate courts (4,66,24,074 cases).
In another reply to Trinamool Congress MP Derek O Brien, the minister said, “Against these vacancies (of high court judges), 158 proposals for appointment of high court judges are at various stages of processing between the government and the Supreme Court Collegium.”
He said, “The recommendations against 204 vacancies are yet to be received from the high court Collegiums.”
The datâ shared with the Rajya Sabha showed that between January 2020 and July 18, 2025, “35 judges have been appointed to the Supreme Court and 554 judges have been appointed to various high courts.”
“Further, 349 names have been remitted to the high courts during the same period.”
The minister’s replies also show that there are 4,721 vacancies of judicial officers in the district courts as of July 25, 2025. Among those vacancies, the highest is in Uttar Pradesh, with 1,025 of the 3,700 posts lying vacant; followed by Gujarat with 535 of the 1,720 posts yet to be filled.
Highest number of pending cases in Uttar Pradesh
About the functioning of fast track courts, the minister told the Upper House that as of today, 665 such special courts are functioning across the country with the highest number – 373 – instituted in Uttar Pradesh alone. While there are 102 fast track courts in Maharashtra, there are 88 of them in West Bengal.
In Tamil Nadu, there are 72 fast track courts functioning currently, while 54 of them are operational in Gujarat.
In Northeast India, while Assam has the highest number of fast track courts at 16, Manipur has six. Mizoram, Sikkim and Tripura have two each.
States and union territories like Telangana, Rajasthan, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Karnataka, Kerala, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Lakshawadeep, Ladakh, Daman and Diu, Chandigarh, Arunachal Pradesh and Andaman & Nicobar Island have no functioning fast track courts.
The data upheld that the highest number of pending cases in these special courts including in the POSCO courts are in Uttar Pradesh – at 92,700.
This July 24, responding to an oral mention made by senior Supreme Court advocate Arvind Datar, advocates Prashant Bhushan and Amit Pai for an early hearing of petitions highlighting the government’s unexplainable delay and unilateral segregation of names recommended by the Collegium, the Chief Justice of India (CJI) B R said the administrative side of the apex court is engaging with the government to clear the Collegium recommendations for judicial appointments to state high courts.
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