Govt gives top priority to fill up existing vacancies of judges in all courts: Union Law Minister

Union Law Minister Sadananda Gowda has said that the Centre is giving top priority to filling up of existing vacancies of judges in all the courts in the country. Talking to news reporters in Salem, Tamil Nadu, the minister said there was a lull in the filling up of the vacancies in the higher judiciary for the last eight months, following the Supreme Court striking down the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act. But now the Government has received sanction for



filling the vacancies to the higher judiciary.

On pendency of cases, Mr.Gowda said, there were three crore cases pending in various courts, including 38 lakh in High Courts and 40,000 in the Supreme Court. He added that in order to clear the pending cases, the ministry has evolved alternate dispute resolution mechanisms like Lok Adalats. Mr Gowda also hoped that around 1800 obsolete acts would be wiped out from the statute book in another four months.