In an attempt to deal with the huge pendency of criminal appeals, the Supreme Court has recommended the appointment of ad-hoc judges in High Courts. But it also clarified that no ad-hoc judge should be appointed in a High Court if it was functioning with 80% sanctioned strength of judges.
A special bench, comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna and Justices BR Gavai and Surya Kant, went to the extent of saying that it could partly modify the 2021 judgement to ensure ad-hoc judges were appointed to decide criminal appeals by division benches presided over by sitting high court judges.
During the hearing, the CJI shared his feelings by saying; he listed the case keeping in mind the “acute pendency of criminal appeals in some high courts”. The apex court referred to the data on pendency of criminal cases in several high courts.
The CJI said in the Jharkhand High court the figure stood at 13,000, and similarly 20,000, 21,000, 8,000 and 21,000 criminal cases were pending in high courts at Karnataka, Patna, Rajasthan and the Punjab and Haryana respectively.
While hearing a 2019 case known as Lok Prahari v. Union of India, the apex court had passed a crucial verdict on April 20, 2021, directing retired High Court judges to be appointed as ad-hoc ones for a period of two to three years to clear the backlog of cases.
The Article 224A of the Constitution deals with the appointment of ad-hoc judges in High Courts.
The top court also laid down guidelines to regulate the appointments of ad-hoc judges.
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