Pay hike for subordinate court judges

A bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices Deepak Verma and B S Chauhan last week said state governments would give salary as per the recommendations of the Justice Padmanabhan committee enhancing the salary almost three-fold for the district court judges.

Justice E Padmanabhan had submitted the report on July 27 last year to the SC recommending uniform salary with enhanced scales for the judges of same rank in all the states translating into at least Rs 20,000 hike for a magistrate at the entry level.

In his report, Justice Padmanabhan had proposed an average 3.07-fold hike in existing salaries, which was recommended by the Second National Judicial Pay Commission.

The All India Judges Association (AIJA) had filed a petition before the Supreme Court seeking implementation of the recommendation of the committee contending that there had been a wide disparity between the salaries of judicial officers and other government employees. The hike in pay scales is to be implemented with effect from January 2006 as per the recommendations of the apex court-appointed committee which had submitted its report in July 2009.

During the hearing, many   states had cited difficulties to implement the recommendations to give a pay hike to the judges. Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal said they did not have funds to give a pay hike to the judges of the district courts.

The SC had sought a response from the states and all high courts on the three-fold salary hike recommended for trial court judges by the Second National Judicial Pay Commission. The commission has fixed a whopping salary scale starting from Rs 73,370 for a district judge (super time scale) as against the existing Rs 24,850.