The bench comprising Justice S Saghir Ahmad and Justice K T Thomas asked the Centre to file reply within ten days to an interlocutory application (IA) by Mohan Lal Gupta seeking filling up of vacancies in the high court even as solicitor general Santosh N Hegde opposed the directive tooth and nail.

Hegde pointed out to the court that the issue raised in Gupta's interlocutory application was comprehensively covered by the Presidential reference being heard at present by a nine-judge constitution bench headed by Justice A S Anand.

Constitutional expert K K Venugopal appearing for the Bar Association of India (BAI), which was allowed to be an intervenor in the IA, also said the matter should come up for hearing only after the constitutionbench gave its ruling on the nine queries raised by the President on apex courts guideline on norms and procedures pertaining to appointment of judges.

However, the bench, which earlier had deferred Gupta's petition seeking appointment of judges whose names have been recommended by the Chief Justice of India, also asked BAI to file its reply within ten days.

The nine-judge bench had issued notices to Union of India and advocates general of all states and union territories on the reference while posting it to September 15.

Gupta's interlocutory application was an off-shoot of his writ petition on the issue of appointment of judges in the Supreme Court, appointment of chief justices and judges to the high courts and their transfers.

Gupta's petition and a similar petition by R K Singh was adjourned by the two-judge bench headed by Justice Ahmad in view of the reference seeking to know from the court whether a recommendation made by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) without following the meaningfulconsultation process would be binding on the government.

The Supreme Court had laid down the procedure and norms pertaining to appointment of judges and their transfers in 1993 while deciding a petition filed by the Supreme Court advocates-on-record association.

Gupta's IA, which was taken up after being mentioned in the court this morning by applicants counsel, sought a directive from the court to the government ‘‘to appoint 11 judges to the high court of Punjab and Haryana, whose names have been cleared and recommended, finally, by the CJI.

At this juncture, counsel for committee on judicial accountability, Kamini Jaiswal, pointed out to the court that the apex court registry was not registering a petition opposing appointment of judges without following proper procedure.

She said it was baffling at the same time that the court was entertaining Gupta's application which was not even listed.

The two-judge bench asked additional solicitor general C S Vaidyanathan as to how the government appointedtwo-judges to the Guwahati High Court in the recent past when it had doubts over the procedure.

Vaidyanathan said the government has the records pertaining to that and the present directive to the Centre to file reply to the application on appointment of judges to the Punjab and Haryana High Court would mean production of the file in the court.

He said it would be improper for the two-judge bench to take note of the file and pass an order when the nine-judge bench, adjudicating the presidential reference, has also sought the same file to be produced before them.

Justice Ahamad expressed concern over the large-scale vacancies in the high courts and said lack of sufficient number of judges has crippled the work in these courts.

Gupta's counsel told the court that there were only 24 judges in the Punjab and Haryana High Court as against the sanctioned strength of 40.

Justice Ahmad said there were over 100 vacancies in various high court and five in the apex court itself and delay in these matters wouldaggravate the situation.