In a historic move, the Supreme Court Collegium approved the re-appointment of five retired judges as judges of the Allahabad High Court on an ad-hoc basis on Tuesday. The Collegium, led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant, invoked Article 224A of the Indian Constitution to re-appoint the retired judges. The CJI-led appointment panel includes Justices Vikram Nath and J K Maheshwari as members.
The newly appointed ad-hoc judges are Mohd. Faiz Alam Khan, Mohd. Aslam, Syed Aftab Husain Rizvi, Renu Agarwal, and Jyotsna Sharma. The tenure of these appointments is two years as mandated by the constitutional provision.
Article 224A enables the Chief Justice of a High Court, with the President’s prior consent, to appoint retired judges as ad hoc judges to handle situations like high backlogs and/or high vacancy rates.
It was in 2021 when the Supreme Court, through a judgment, had revived what it called a “dormant” provision of the Constitution to address massive pendency. This rare move is thus aimed at addressing the huge backlogs of cases, particularly in criminal matters, that the Allahabad High Court has been grappling with for a long time.
With these appointments, the Allahabad High Court will now have 115 judges against the sanctioned strength of 160. Though 45 vacancies remain to be filled, the addition of five judges will surely reduce the backlog in the HC’s criminal jurisdiction.
Even though the Constitution provides for it, appointments of ad-hoc judges are extremely rare. There are only three such instances in the history of the Indian judiciary when the top court facilitated such appointments in the past. It includes the appointment of Justice Suraj Bhan to Madhya Pradesh HC in 1972, Justice P. Venugopal to Madras HC in 1982, and Justice O.P.Srivastava to Allahabad HC in 2007.
Sources confided that it was after media reports on High Courts not complying with the apex court’s judgements on appointments of ad-hoc judges that CJI Surya Kant decided to initiate the process.
Currently, the ad-hoc judges are being selected from amongst those who have retired less than a year ago.
Similar appointments are going to take place in two other High Courts as well. The fact is all the HC Chief Justices have been sent letters to nominate ad-hoc judges for appointment. So far, the collegium has received recommendations from three HCs. While Allahabad’s proposal has been approved, the collegium is likely to meet on Wednesday to clear the remaining two. Sources indicated that more HCs are in the process of sending their suggestions.
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