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The Joint Secretary to the Minister of Law & Justice, Mr. G R Raghavendar said that the central government is keen to introduce All India Judicial Services if there is a consensus within the Judiciary. The statement was made by him on Sunday while attending an interactive session on Indian Legal System: what is the Government doing to improve it, hosted by Advocate Sumit Nagpal.
He also stated that the current Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, has repeatedly suggested the government to introduce All India Judicial Services, but this hasn’t taken place yet due to the lack of consensus among the High Courts across the country. He also said that All India Judicial Services was mooted with the objective of infusing new blood in the Indian Judiciary.
The 14th Law Commission submitted in year 1958 had recommended the formation of the All India Judicial Services. He further stated that Article 312 inserted in the 42nd amendment of the constitution in year 1976 was to provide for AIJS. The 77th and 116th Law Commission reports supported the idea. Even in the All India Judges Case 1992, the supreme court asked that why it was not implementing AIJS. The reason behind it he stated was due to lack of political will.
The law secretary also informed that few courts have agreed completely, few courts have agreed with amendments and few courts have not agreed. He said that the power of appointing judges by high courts cannot be taken away. He suggested that AIJS can solve the issues of piling up vacancies in subordinate judiciary. The data of present shows that the sanctioned strength is 24,064 against which 19,160 judges have been appointed and 4,900 vacancies are left unfilled. Last week it was reported that the government is in final process of introducing the Bill to establish All India Judicial Services to recruit officers for subordinate courts through an entrance test.
A petition was also filed by All India Judges Association seeking to direct the centre to check the feasibility of AIJS which has been pending in Supreme Court since 2015.
The High Courts which were in favour of implementation of AIJS were Sikkim and Haryana and the governments of Haryana, Mizoram, Sikkim and Tripura were also in favour whereas Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Punjab, Himanchal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh opposed the constitution of AIJS.
There were five states which suggested changes, Chhattisgarh suggesting that only 15% of the vacancies should be filled through AIJS and Bihar seeking major revisions. The states - Uttarakhand, Manipur, Odisha have also sought changes and the Governments of Gujarat, UP, Assam, West Bengal, Telangana, Andhra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Jharkhand and Goa are yet to respond to the proposal of Constitutionalising the Bill.
The High Courts of the following states - Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Delhi, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, MP, TN, Manipur, Bihar, Punjab and Haryana and Assam are not in favour of Constitutionalising the AIJS whereas the Calcutta High court have not responded yet and High Courts of Jharkhand and Rajasthan are still examining the proposal, he said.
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