NEW DELHI: The Centre supported the Telangana government’s plea before the Supreme Court on Friday for urgent bifurcation of the high court between Andhra Pradesh and itself and said non-division had hampered the career prospects of judges in the state’s lower judiciary and HC.

A bench of Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan, after hearing attorney general K K Venugopal and Telangana counsel and former AG Mukul Rohatgi , sought responses from the Andhra Pradesh government and the HC of Telangana and AP in two weeks.

Rohatgi said division between Telangana and AP had taken place in the legislature and the executive on a 40:60 ratio and a similar bifurcation must be effected with the HC, which has very low representation at present from Telangana.

Venugopal said there were 24 vacant rooms in the T&AP HC and these could be utilised to create a separate HC for Telangana. The sanctioned judge strength of T&AP HC is 61 judges, of which AP has been allotted 37 judges (28 permanent and nine additional) and Telangana 24 judges (18 permanent and six additional).

However, the combined HC at present has 36 vacancies. Of the 25 judges in the HC, 21 are from AP and four from Telangana. Rohatgi said because of this low representation, the career prospects of judges from Telangana was seriously affected.

