Judges Appointment
SC relaxes conditions to appoint ad-hoc judges in HC to tackle pendency
This story was originally published at 17:58 IST on 30 January 2025
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NEW DELHI – To tackle a backload of more than 62,000 cases pending with high courts all over India, the Supreme Court on Thursday relaxed some of the conditions for appointment of ad-hoc judges in these courts. Article 224 of the Indian Constitution allows the chief justice of a high court to request retired high court judges to perform the duties of a judge again, with the permission of the President. However, it was rarely invoked for such appointments.
In 2021, the apex court had said that for the appointment of ad-hoc judges, there should not be more than 20% of the vacancies for which no recommendation has been made. The court had said that if the recommendations had not been made for more than 20% of the regular vacancies, then the trigger for recourse to appointment of ad hoc judges would not arise. The apex court kept these conditions in abeyance. "In other words, the requirement that vacancies should not be more than 20% shall be kept in abeyance," said the bench led by Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna.
The apex court said that each high court should keep the appointment of ad-hoc judges "two to five" in number but not exceeding 10% of the sanctioned strength. The ad-hoc judges will sit on a bench presided over by a sitting judge of the high court and decide pending criminal appeals. The memorandum of procedure in place will be applied and resorted to for such appointments, said the court. End
Reported by Surya Tripathi
Edited by Avishek Dutta
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