Pitiable: Supreme Court on pension of retired high court judges

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it was "pitiable" that some retired high court judges were getting a pension ranging between Rs 10,000 and Rs 15,000.

"You cannot have a legal approach in every matter. Sometimes, you need to have a humane approach," observed a bench of Justices B R Gavai and K V Viswanathan.

"It is pitiable," the bench said, while noting that some retired high court judges were getting pension ranging between Rs 10,000 and Rs 15,000.

The pleas raising issue concerning pension of retired high court judges was listed for hearing before the bench on Wednesday.

Attorney General R Venkataramani mentioned the matter before the bench and requested that it be taken up for hearing in January.

Venkataramani said the government would try to resolve the issue.

"It is better you persuade them that our intervention should be avoided," the bench observed.

It said the matter would not be decided on individual cases and whatever the top court might lay down would be applicable to all the high court judges.

The bench posted the matter for hearing on January 8.

While hearing one of the pleas in the matter last month, the apex court had expressed "shock" that some retired high court judges were getting a meagre pension ranging between Rs 6,000 and Rs 15,000.

The bench was hearing a petition filed by a retired high court judge who said he was receiving a pension of Rs 15,000.

The petitioner, who was elevated as a judge of the Allahabad High Court after serving as a judicial officer in the district court for 13 years, had claimed that the authorities had refused to consider his judicial service while computing the pension.

"If there are retired high court judges before us who are getting Rs 6,000 and Rs 15,000 as pension, it is shocking. How can that be?" the bench had remarked while hearing the plea.

While hearing a separate plea in March, the apex court had said there cannot be any discrimination in computing the pensionary benefits of retired judges of high courts based on whether they were elevated from the bar or the district judiciary.

Pensionary benefits of a retired high court judge, who was elevated from the district judiciary, should be computed based on his or her last drawn salary as a high court judge, it had said.