The Chief Justice of High Court may appoint any person who has held the office of a Judge of that Court or of any other High Court to sit and act as ad hoc Judge of the High Court for that State for the period of two to three years under Article 224A primarily for filling up of vacancies and to curtail mounting arrears of the cases. The court laid down guidelines for when A. 224A can be activated –

(a) .  If the vacancies are more than 20% of the sanctioned strength.

( b.) .  The cases in a particular category are pending for over five years.

(c.)  More than 10% of the backlog of pending cases are over five years old. (d) .  The percentage of the rate of disposal is lower than the institution of the cases either in a particular subject matter or generally in the Court.

( e.)  Even if there are not many old cases pending, but depending on the jurisdiction, a situation of mounting arrears is likely to arise if the rate of disposal is consistently lower than the rate of filing over a period of a year or more. The court also enumerated an embargo situation where it observed that the recourse to Article 224A is not an alternative to regular appointments and clarified that if recommendations have not been made for more than 20% of the regular vacancies then the trigger for recourse to Article 224A would not arise. ( WP No. 1236 of 2019 dt  20 -4 -2021