AGE CAP FOR HC JUDGES TO BE REVISED?

The law ministry has dusted out an old proposal and given it a major modification to suggest to the government an amendment to the Constitution to put the retirement age of high court judges on a par with that of the Supreme Court judges -- 65 years.

The fresh proposal has scissored out a part of the earlier proposal, which suggested increasing the retirement age of Supreme Court judges proportionally, that is, from the present 65 years to 68 years.

But, any increase in the retirement age of the HC judges would require an amendment to Article 217 of the Constitution. So, this proposal would require support from most of the political parties before being brought in as a Constitutional Amendment Bill.

The move aims to end the embarrassing situation faced by the Chief Justice of India and the collegium of judges in the face of strong lobbying by high court judges and chief justices for elevation to the SC prior to their retirement at the age of 62 years. Appointment of an HC judge or a CJ to the SC means another three years on the Bench.

Secondly, the law ministry headed by M Veerappa Moily feels that once the retirement age of HC judges is increased and put on a par with that of the SC judges, it would eliminate the lure for the extra three years and along with it the rush for appointment to the SC.

At present as against a sanctioned strength of 895, there are around 650 HC judges and at any given time there are at least 20 to 30 judges aspiring to fill two to three vacancies in the Supreme Court.

In the last three years, several judges appointed to the Supreme Court had just three or four years of tenure before attaining the age of superannuation at 65 years. This means, the HC judges or chief justices were elevated to the SC just prior to retiring at the age of 62 years. This recent phenomenon has made the law ministry to dust out an old proposal to increase the retirement age of HC judges from 62 to 65 years.

Nearly seven years ago, the Justice Venkatachaliah-headed Committee to Review the Working of the Constitution had suggested increasing the retirement age of Supreme Court judges to 68 years and that of HC judges to 65 years.