Naidu recalled that following “widely expressed concern over lack of transparency and objectivity” in the selection of judges of High Courts and the Supreme Court, Parliament had unanimously passed an Act for setting up of the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC).

The Apex Court, however, in its wisdom struck down this legislation last year after hearings during April-December, he noted.

“I would like to remind the Congress, in case it has forgotten, that it had supported the NJAC proposal,” the I&B Minister said.

He said that while striking down the NJAC proposal, the five-Judge Bench of the Supreme Court had clearly emphasized the need to improve the collegium system of appointing judges to ensure transparency and objectivity in the selection.

As per the direction of the Apex Court, the government is working on a revised Memorandum of Protocol in this regard and the same is under the consideration of the Supreme Court for over the last two months, Naidu said.

“Congress party needs to know that a large number of judges have been appointed to the High Courts during the last two years and this was acknowledged by the Hon'ble Chief Justice of India during the hearing yesterday,” he said.

He said the working strength of judges in High Courts remained at almost the same level during the last few years.

“If the nine-month period of hearing on NJAC proposal, during when no appointments were made, is excluded, the rate of appointment of judges by this government has increased by 63 per cent, which is no mean achievement,” Naidu said.          

“Vacancies remained more or less the same despite increase in posts and no appointment during hearing on NJAC,” he said.

“Congress party should realize and acknowledge the same after perusing the following information regarding vacant posts of High Court Judges,” he said while giving a breakup of vacancies per year from 2008 till 2016.

According to the statistics furnished by him, there were 280 vacancies out of 877 posts in 2008, 276 of 886 posts in 2009, 265 of 895 posts in 2010, 286 of 895 posts in 2011, 273 of 895 posts in 2012, 282 of 895 posts in 2013 and 267 of 906 posts in 2014.