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The Supreme Court resolution of the collegium recommending the elevation of judges to Allahabad High Court contains a significant observation regarding income criteria.
It was noted in the Collegium that some of the advocates recommended by the High Court Collegium were not meeting the criteria of minimum annual net professional income of Rs. 7 lakhs.
Therefore, the Collegium of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justices A K Sikri, and S A Bobde observed :
The Collegium considers it appropriate to relax the income criterion to a reasonable extent in cases where such recommended belong to categories of SC/ST/OBC or represent Government in their capacity as Standing /Panel Counsel before the Courts.
Many people got dropped by the Collegium for the reason of not meeting the professional income criteria. During December 2017, a recommendation from Calcutta HC was rejected by the Collegium just on the sole ground of not meeting the income limit.
Last year, one recommendation from the High Court of Kerala was also rejected on this sole ground. This practice of rejecting a candidate solely on the ground of income limit, despite satisfying other suitability criteria, has attracted criticism from many sections of the Bar.
Advocate Namit Saxena has opined that "the income generated by a lawyer depends on the field of his practice. It cannot be ruled out that advocates doing pro bono work or who specialize in a particular field may generate lesser comparative professional income than their counterparts who may be working in another field of law. The range also varies geographically. An advocate in Calcutta may earn less than one in Delhi. Insistence on any particular income, therefore, in my view is an important criterion for considering candidature, but must not be the sole criteria for rejecting one.
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