While disposing of plea praying to take up the issue regarding increase in the sanctioned strength of Judges in the High Court of Madhya Pradesh, the HC said that the issue, "in any case, shall have to be taken up with the Government on the administrative side.
The Bench of Chief Justice Mohammad Rafiq and Justice Prakash Shrivastava further observed,
It is also not deemed appropriate to take up the issue regarding increase in the sanctioned strength on judicial side as so far not even the available vacancies have been filled up.
The Plea before the Court The petitioners (Dr. M. A. Khan & Amarjeet Singh Panwar) filed the instant Writ Petition in "Public Interest", inter alia, praying for a direction to the respondents to fill up the vacancies of Judges in the High Court of Madhya Pradesh and also to increase the sanctioned strength of the judges of MP HC.
The petitioners, in the writ petition, stated that as against the sanctioned strength of 53 there are presently 28 Judges working and out of them 8 judges are due to retire in the year 2021.
Court's Order The Court, apart from aforementioned observations, said, "Having regard to the fact that 7 names from the Bar and 6 from Service have already been recommended and are under process, we do not deem it appropriate to entertain the present writ petition."
Thus, the Petition was dismissed. In related news, the Central Government on Thursday (31st December) notified the appointment of Justice Mohammad Ragiq,the (then) Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court, as the new Chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court.
The Centre has also notified the appointment of Justice Sanjay Yadav, (then) a Judge of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, as a Judge of the Allahabad high court.
It may be noted that with the appointment of Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia, Judge of the Uttarakhand High Court, as the Chief Justice of the Gauhati High Court,all the 25 High Courts in the country now have regular Chief Justices. Case title - Dr. M. A. Khan and others v. Union Of India and others.