Bengaluru: Advocates of the Karnataka High Court, including senior counsel members, have decided to go on a eight-day relay hunger strike protesting against the inaction of the central government in appointing judges to fill vacancies in the court.
Of all the High Courts in the country, Karnataka has the least number of judges, functioning at only 38.70% of the sanctioned strength. Out of the 62 judge posts that are available only 24 are in place, 8 of which are functioning out of the Gulbarga and Dharwad Benches.
Since January 2017, only two new appointments have been made to the Karnataka High Court out of the 150 judges that were appointed to various other high courts in the country. The Advocate Association of Bengaluru, believe that a step motherly treatment is being meted out to Karnataka.
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah met the advocates on strike. (Photo: CNN-News18)
BV Acharya, Former Attorney General of the Karnataka High Court and the senior most practising advocate, also joined the protesting lawyers.
"We have over 2.5 lakh cases pending, litigants have to wait for years together to even get a hearing, the result is people are losing faith in the judiciary. We have only one demand that immediately all the vacancies need to be filled up and the court should start functioning with 62 sanctioned judges."
Of the 39 court halls of the principal bench of the Karnataka High Court, only 13 are functional, leaving 26 court halls vacant.
Sadananda Gowda (centre), Union Minister of Statistics and Programme Implementat-ion, also met the advocates on strike. (Photo: CNN-News18)
Former Law minister Sadanand Gowda, along with BJP MLA Suresh Kumar, visited the agitated lawyers and promised to convey their message to the authorities at the centre. However, previous attempts to get the Centre's attention has fallen on deaf ears.
"Karnataka collegium had submitted seven names to the SC collegium, two names were given two years ago, but still we have seen no appointment letter from the centre," senior counsel DLN Rao said.
At this rate, with the number of pending cases and new cases being registered every day, it will take almost 15 years for all cases to be disposed according to his estimates.
Karnataka state bar council and the Advocate's Association of Bengaluru have also written to the Attorney general of India, KK Venugopal seeking his intervention in the matter. They are scheduled to meet him on Thursday. If their demands are not met, advocates may abstain from court proceedings all over Karnataka post this eight-day protest.
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