NEW DELHI: The Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice has recommended to increase the retirement age of judges in High Courts and Supreme Court. The Committee, in its 133rd Report on the subject ‘Judicial Processes and their reform’, says it feels that the “age of retirement of judges needs to be increased in sync with the increase in the longevity and advancement in medical sciences leading to improved health of the population.”
The Committee accordingly, as per Para 47 of the report, recommends that “relevant Articles of the Constitution of India need to be amended and the age of retirement of judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts may be increased appropriately.” However, it further said, while increasing the age of retirement for judges, the performance of judges may be reassessed based on their health conditions, quality of judgements and number of judgments delivered.
“For this, a system of appraisal may be devised and put in place, by the Supreme Court collegium, before any judge is recommended for enhancement of their tenure,” Para 48 of the report mentions. Pointing in its Para 49 that many stakeholders had also raised objections to the post-retirement assignments given to judges, as per the report, the Committee is accordingly of the view that with the increase in the age of retirement of judges, the practice of post-retirement assignments to judges of Supreme Court and High Courts in bodies and institutions financed from public exchequer may be reassessed to ensure their impartiality.
It further recommended that the judiciary needs to be sensitized from shutting down courts en masse for a couple of months a year. “The demand for doing away with vacations in the Courts emanates primarily due to two factors, one is the huge pendency of cases in our courts, and the other is the inconvenience faced by the litigants during the vacations of the courts,” it said.
“A common man holds a perception that despite having such huge pendency of cases their judges go on long vacations. Further during the vacations, the litigants have to suffer a lot despite having a handful of vacation courts/benches,” it added. “Though in this connection it may be noted that for the past few years, the pendency in the Supreme Court has remained static and in the year 2022 the disposal of cases was more than the number of cases instituted in that year. Thus it can be seen that as far as the disposal of cases is concerned, the performance of our Supreme Court is quite good. The problem lies with the legacy arrears of about 35000,” the report pointed.
With regard to High Courts, the pendency is humungous, it further said, and noted more than 60 lakh cases are pending as on date, which is a reason for deep concern. “Though it is also a grim fact that almost all the High Courts have a very high level of vacancies,” the report stated. As on December 31 last year, the reports states, overall vacancies in the High Courts stood at 30 per cent of the sanctioned strength and in many of them had vacancies ranging from 40 – 50 per cent. “Thus vacations are not the only cause of high pendency in the higher judiciary,” added the Committee.
This report concerns the higher judiciary of the country like the Supreme Court and High Courts wherein the committee examined issues and suggested six reforms that included Social Diversity in the appointment of Judges in the High Court and Supreme Court; Feasibility of Regional Benches of Supreme Court; Exploring the possibilities of increasing the retirement age of High Court and Supreme Court Judges; Vacations in the Supreme Court and High Courts; Mandatory declaration of assets by the Judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts; and preparation and publication of Annual Reports by the Supreme Court and High Courts.
