Govt yet to receive prospective names from HCs to appoint ad-hoc judges

New Delhi: Over a month after the Supreme Court cleared the decks to appoint ad-hoc judges in high courts to deal with rising pendency of cases, the government is yet to receive proposals from respective HCs naming candidates.

Considering a backlog of over 18 lakh criminal cases, the Supreme Court on January 30 allowed the high courts to appoint ad-hoc judges, not exceeding 10 per cent of the court's total sanctioned strength.

Article 224A of the Constitution allows the appointment of retired judges as ad-hoc judges in high courts to help deal with pendency.

Sources said the Union law ministry is yet to receive any recommendation from respective high court collegiums for appointing ad-hoc judges.

As per the laid down procedure, the respective high court collegiums send recommendations or names of candidates to be appointed as HC judges to the Department of Justice in the law ministry.

The department then adds inputs and details on the candidates before forwarding the same to the Supreme Court Collegium.

The SC Collegium then takes a final call and recommends to the government to appoint the selected persons as judges.

The president signs the 'warrant of appointment' of the newly-appointed judge.

The procedure to appoint ad- hoc judges will be the same except that the president will not sign the warrant of appointment. But the assent of the president will be sought for appointing ad-hoc judges.

Except in one case, there is no precedence of appointing retired judges as ad-hoc HC judges, sources pointed out.

In a judgement on April 20, 2021 on the appointment of ad-hoc judges in the high courts, the top court had imposed certain conditions. However, later a special Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna, justices B R Gavai and Surya Kant had relaxed certain conditions and kept some in abeyance.

The verdict, which was authored by former Chief Justice S A Bobde, directed retired high court judges to be appointed as ad-hoc ones for a period of two to three years to clear the backlog.

While one condition said the ad-hoc judges couldn't be appointed if a high court working with 80 per cent of its sanctioned strength, the other said ad-hoc judges could sit separately on benches to deal with cases.

Relaxing the conditions, the court said the requirement that vacancies should not be more than 20 per cent of the sanctioned strength for the time being shall be kept in abeyance.

The bench said each high court should keep the appointment to two to five ad-hoc judges and not exceed 10 per cent of the total sanctioned strength.

"The ad-hoc judges will sit in a bench presided over by a sitting judge of the high court and decide pending criminal appeals," said the apex court's order.

The rarely used Article 224A of the Constitution deals with the appointment of ad-hoc judges in high courts.

"The Chief Justice of a High Court for any State may at any time, with the previous consent of the President, request any person who has held the office of a Judge of that Court or of any other High Court to sit and act as a Judge of the High Court for that State".