INDIA: Jammu and Kashmir Likely to Get First Women High Court Judge

Date: 
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Source: 
Kashmir Observer
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With the Jammu and Kashmir High Court more or less set to have more judges to deal with pending cases, history is likely to be made as the new appointments may include a woman candidate, sources said.
The union law ministry is likely to announce the appointment of judges against vacancies in the High Court very soon.

At present there are four vacancies in the High Court, but it would be back to five again with recent collegium of the Supreme Court recommending elevation of the senior most judge, Justice Nisar Ahmad Kakru as the chief justice of Andhra Pradesh High Court.
With Justice Kakru's departure, the High Court would have nine judges, including five from the Bar quota and four from the judicial services.

Justice Sunil Hali, Justice Nisar Ahmed Kakroo, Justice J P Singh, Justice Muzaffar Hussain Attaar and Justice Pramod Kohli are from the Bar quota while Justice Hakeem Imtiyaz Hussain, Justice, Mansoor Ahmed Mir, Justice Mohammad Yaqoob Mir and Justice Hasnain Masoodi belong to the judicial services.

As per the purview of the law, the appointments fall in the ratio of 60: 40 for the Bar and the services. Accordingly, 9 judges could be from the Bar and 5 from the Services.
According to sources, two of the contenders for the vacant slots are women - former additional advocate general of Jammu, Seema Shekhar Khajuria and deputy advocate general, Neeru Goswami.

The move to appoint High Court judges comes in the wake of the chief justice of India, Justice KG Balakrishnan's concern over the staggering number of cases pending in courts all over India as also continuing vacancies of judges at all levels.
Official sources said that in the High Courts there were as many as 240 vacancies for judges in India while in the lower courts at the district levels, the number stood at over 2,500.

While there are about 4 million cases pending in various High Courts in India, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court has a backlog of 30306 civil in addition to 1077 criminal cases by the end of July last year.