NEW DELHI: It takes 337 days, or the better part of a year, on an average for appointment of a high court judge after a name is recommended by the HC collegium, attorney general K K Venugopal told the Supreme Court on Monday, arguing that the judiciary was equally responsible for 36% vacancies in HCs.Detailing the timeline, Venugopal told a bench of Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph, which is examining delays in appointment of HC judges, that on average the Centre took 127 days to decide on the list given by the HC and forward it to the SC collegium The collegium took 119 days to clear the names and the government thereafter took another 73 days to finalise the list which was then cleared by the Prime Minister and the President in 18 days. The break-up was based on the time taken for appointments in 2019.Justifying the time taken by the Centre to forward the recommendations , the attorney general said the government had to collect information from state authorities and conduct an inquiry by the Intelligence Bureau before clearing names and asked why the SC collegium took almost the same time.The sanctioned strength of judges in 25 HCs is 1,079 but the working strength, as on February 1, was 683. Some HCs like Patna and Rajasthan have more than 50% vacancies.Venugopal said a major reason for huge vacancies was delay on part of HC collegiums in recommending names. As of now, no names have been forwarded by HCs for 199 out of 396 vacancies. He urged the SC to direct HCs to initiate the process of appointment one year before a vacancy arose and said explanation should be sought for delays. He told the bench that in many cases, HC collegiums sent recommendations more than five years after a vacancy arose.Agreeing with the AG’s submission, the bench said, “Some introspection is required to be done on our part also and there has to be some administrative work mechanism... If we (judiciary) are not doing something, then we also need to push ourselves.”It said the situation in some HCs was “alarming” and the chief justices of HCs must try to make recommendations as early as possible. Though the bench did not issue notice to HCs for delay in appointments, it directed registrar generals of HCs to file a report on vacancies or those likely to arise in the near future and when recommendations would be made by HCs for appointments.As per the report filed by the AG, 80 proposals are pending with the SC collegium and 35 with the Centre. He said the SC collegium and the Centre were on the same page regarding 10 out of 35 proposals and there was a difference of opinion on 25 names.