Khushi
The court, to reduce the backlog of pending cases, prescribes fixed tenure of two or more years for ad-hoc judges if they are appointed in high courts.
The court opinionated that some of the allegations made against judges are so “shockingly false” that without security of tenure, they could have been easily “knocked out”.
A Special Bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde said, “Position of judge has to be made secure. I tell you, we have seen allegations against judges which are shockingly false. Yes, some of them are shockingly false. You can easily knock out a judge if there is no security. There has to be security of tenure for ad-hoc judges”.
A Bench, also comprising Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Surya Kant, in order to reduce the pending cases, reserved verdict on a plea filed by NGO Lok Prahari seeking appointment of additional judges in the high courts under Article 224A of the Constitution on hearing arguments on the modalities of appointments of ad-hoc judges.
According to Article 224-A of Constitution “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”.
The CJI also brushed aside the argument that high court chief justices may not be able to hear important matters, if ad-hoc judges are appointed. He stated that appointment of an ad-hoc judge for regular cases can let the Chief Justice focus on important constitutional issues.
