Congress veteran P. Chidambaram has attributed the delay in filling up judicial posts to the Narendra Modi government’s desire to pick only sympathisers of its “retrograde philosophy and ideology”.

Chidambaram, a senior lawyer, tweeted on Saturday: “Out of 1,080 sanctioned posts of High Court judges, 416 are vacant. There is a huge number of vacancies in Tribunals. Posts of Chairperson of several Tribunals are vacant! They include DRT, NCLAT, TDSAT, etc. Why is Modi Government that is ensconced in office for seven years not able or willing to fill these vacancies? The country is not short of lawyers and judges qualified to fill these vacancies. The real reason is the Government is looking for persons who will sympathise with its retrograde philosophy and ideology.”

The Supreme Court has time and again prodded the government to fill the large number of vacant posts in the judiciary, accusing the Centre of sitting on collegium recommendations. Former Chief Justices of India have periodically flagged the issue.

On Friday, the Supreme Court had pulled up the government for the vacancies at the tribunals.

The government too has acknowledged the massive vacancies in the judiciary.

The Congress has often accused the RSS-BJP of packing institutions and academia with people who are close to them ideologically. However, this is the first time someone has tied judicial appointments to the government’s ideological leanings.

There have been no judicial appointments to the Supreme Court and several high courts since 2020. A Supreme Court bench headed by then Chief Justice S.A. Bobde had remarked earlier this year that high courts across the country were in a “state of crisis” due to vacancies.

Former Supreme Court judge Madan V. Lokur recently wrote an article expressing the fear that it could be too late to fix the problems in the judiciary if appointments were not made immediately.

According to the Union law ministry website, there are eight vacant judges’ posts in the Supreme Court at the moment. Two judges are to retire soon. The sanctioned strength of the Supreme Court is 34 while the working strength is 26 now.

There are 455 vacancies in the high courts, according to the ministry. The sanctioned strength of the high courts is 1,098, but there are presently 643 judges, the website says.