SC refuses to entertain plea seeking uniform retirement age for judges

The petitioner was asked to approach the Union Government or the Law Commission of India with a representation

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a plea for fixing uniform retirement age of 65 years for both the apex court and high court judges.

A bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian asked petitioner, BJP leader and advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay why he wanted all high court judges to work upto 65 years.

The petitioner contended there should not be disparity in the age as both the high courts and the Supreme Court were constitutional courts. He also claimed it was irrational and arbitrary to have different age of retirement.

The court, however, asked him to approach the Law and Justice Ministry with his plea. Upadhyay finally preferred to withdraw the plea.

The petitioner claimed retirement age of higher court judges varied from 70-80 years in developed countries.

For example, judges retire at the age of 75 years in the UK and Canada, and at the age of 70 years in Australia, Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, Norway. Moreover, the judges work for lifetime in the United States, Russia, New Zealand and Iceland, subject to their physical-mental fitness.

The plea contended that uniformity in the retirement age was necessary to reduce pendency of cases.

At present, the retirement age for the apex court judges is 65 years, whereas for the high court judges, it is 62 years.

He also claimed finest lawyers do not want to become judge of the high courts because they are compelled to retire at an early age of 62 years.