Retired judges will soon be part of High Court (HC) benches after being reappointed as ad-hoc judges. The reappointment process was set in motion by a Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna. The plan was decided after getting no objection from the Union government. With this move, the Supreme Court plans to reappoint up to five HC judges per HC to address the backlog of about 62 lakh cases.
It is going to be done under the dormant Article 224A of the Constitution, used only thrice in last 75 years. According to it, retired judges, on being appointed as ad hoc judges, would enjoy all powers and privileges of an HC judge, but they would not be deemed to be a judge of the HC. This means, they will not have any say in the administrative affairs of the high court, nor will they head a division bench.
The HC collegiums will be recommending names of retired judges to the Supreme Court collegium, which will then select suitable persons and recommend their names for appointment as ad hoc judges of HCs for a fixed tenure or for specific purpose.
A bench of the top three SC judges, CJI Sanjiv Khanna and Justices B R Gavai and Surya Kant, clarified that the retired judges, after being appointed, would be part of a bench headed by a sitting judge of the HC. It was also clarified that no fresh cases would be listed before a bench which has an ad hoc judge.
This move is aimed at reducing the huge backlog of the pending cases in High Courts. Of the total pendency of over 62 lakh cases, 18.2 lakh are criminal cases and 44 lakh civil.
The Allahabad high court has the highest pendency of more than 11.5 lakh cases – 6 lakh civil cases and 5.5 lakh criminal cases, yet it is functioning at 50% strength. Similarly, total pendency in Bombay HC is 6.5 lakh, Calcutta HC 2 lakh, Madras HC 5.2 lakh, Delhi HC 1.3 lakh, Punjab and Haryana HC 4.3 lakh and Karnataka HC 3 lakh.
