The Supreme Court on Monday directed Home Secretaries of six states to appear before it personally or depute an officer to explain the cause of huge police vacancies in their respective states. A bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar referred to the vacancy in the states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, and summoned the home secretaries or officers not below the rank of the joint secretary authorized by them for making it understand the problem on Friday. The bench, also comprising Justices D Y Chandrachud and S K Kaul, said that the data, mostly pertaining to 2013, indicates that there are huge vacancies in the police force in various states and said, "We endeavor to monitor the filling up of vacancies." It said that there are more than 40,000 and 1.5 lakh vacancies in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, respectively. The six states have been asked to provide the roadmap as to how they endeavor to fill up the vacancies with the apex court fixing the plea filed by Manish Kumar for monitoring by it on April 21.