ORDER

The communication exchanged with the Registry of different High Courts of the country (24 in number) indicates that there are a total of 22036 posts in the cadre of Higher Judicial Service (cadre of District Judges/Additional District Judges/Class-I Grade/Grade-I) as well as in the cadre of Civil Judge Senior Division/Civil Judge Junior Division (also referred to as Grade-II/ Grade-III - Class-II/Class-III in some states). This constitutes the total workforce of the District and Subordinate Judiciary in the country. 5133 posts out of the total of 22036 posts as on date are vacant. The information collected by the Registry of this Court from the Registries of different High Courts indicates that recruitment process/processes to fill up 4180 posts are presently underway and the said recruitment processes are poised at different stages in different States. The information collected also indicates that total of 1324 posts out of the 5133 vacancies are yet to be subjected to any recruitment process.

There is an obvious mis-match of the figures mentioned above which is being also looked into by the Registry of this Court.

The existence of vacancies to the extent indicated is wholly