Filling existing vacancies in High Courts a priority: SC

New Delhi, March 20 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Monday said filling up existing vacancies in high courts and subordinate courts were the first priority and only thereafter the question of increasing their sanctioned strength would arise.

"In the first stage, we will look into the filling up of vacancies of High Court judges and then we will look into increasing the number of High Court judges," said the bench of Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul.

Chief Justice Khehar said that Memorandum of Procedure for the appointment of judgers to higher judiciary had been cleared and the appointments to High Courts were being made on "war footing".

Disposing a batch of PILs seeking the enhancing of strength of judges in the High Courts and the lower judiciary to deal with the huge pendency of cases, the bench said its first priority is to fill the vacancies against the existinbg sanctionefd strength.

The bench said a committee of senior apex court judges had been formed to suggest ways to restrict the pendency of cases to three years.