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A Public Intrest Litigation was filed on 5th April 2020 in the Supreme Court of India seeking to direct the Central Government to have a uniform age retirement age for judges of both Supreme Court and High Court. The petition was filed under Article 32 by Bharati Janta Party(BJP) leader Ashwini Upadhyay hailing from the capital of the country.
Presently, The retirement age for a Supreme court judge is 65 years and for a High court judge is 62 years. The retirement age of the High Court judge was increased from 60 years to 62 years by the 15th Constitutional amendment in 1963. As of now one-third of the 1079 posts for judges in 25 High courts are vacant. In 2010, a bill to increase the retirement age of High court judges was brought by the UPA government but was lapsed due to the dissolution of Lok sabha. Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi requested the Prime Minister to increase the retirement age of the High court Judge in 2019. In December 2020, a bill for the same was presented by Mner of Parliament and Advocate P.Wilson. No serious efforts were taken to consider the requirement to increase the retirement age of High court Judges.
The petitioner, in this case, claimed that the cause of action is a statement given by Union law Minister Dr. Ravi Shankar Prasad in Rajya Sabha that "there is no proposal to increase the retirement age of the Judges of High Courts". With all due respect, the petitioner pointed out the pendency of cases in the Indian judiciary, the sole reason for such a huge delay is the lack of Strength in numbers of Judges which is just 20 judges per 10 lakh people. The Indian judiciary is losing a talented pool of Judges because of early retirement. Also, the advocates are not willing to become judges as they are compelled to retire early. This is having huge consequences for the citizens of India. He contended that rule of law guaranteed under Article 14 and the right to speedy justice guaranteed under Article 21, is being offended. Petitioner submitted that equaling the age of the judges in both the court will eliminate the sense of subordination between both the courts, also the judge will work more effectively with Independence and without expectations to move to Supreme Court.
Bringing uniformity will ease the judicial process as there will be a set of experienced judges who can best interpret the Constitution in important matters. A comparison was drawn by giving examples of another country like in Uk where the retirement age is 75 years, 70 years in the USA, Russia, New Zealand, Iceland.
The petitioner recommends that keeping in view the above-stated facts and circumstances and to reduce the pendency of cases, minimize judicial and procedural error, the secure fundamental right of speedy justice, and trust and confidence of common man in the democracy, the Court may direct the Centre to take appropriate steps to make the retirement age of judges of the High Courts and Supreme Court uniform i.e., 65 years. In order to reduce the pendency of cases from 15 to 3 years in line with the Resolution dated 25.10.2009, the Court also may direct the Centre to take steps to implement the recommendations of the Law Commission and Venkatachaliah Commission on Judicial Reform.
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