Judicial Officers' Pay | Supreme Court Directs States & UTs To Disburse Funds Within 4 Weeks From Lodging Of Claims On SNJPC Proposals

The Supreme Court today (August 27) directed the States and Union Territories to disburse the funds within 4 weeks from the date of claims raised by Judicial Officers for clearance of arrears and allowances as per Court's earlier directions.

The bench led by CJI DY Chandrachud comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra was hearing the issue of non-compliance with the directions of payment of arrears to judicial officers in terms of the Second National Judicial Pay Commission recommendations. Senior Advocate K Parameshar, the amicus curiae in the matter assisted the Court. 

Previously, the Court directed the personal appearances of Chief and Financial Secretaries of States/UTs which have not complied 

The Court noted that 4 states so far have made complete compliance to the directions for clearing the arrears and allowances of the officers. These include - Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Madhya Pradesh. 

With regards the remaining states and UTs- West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Kerala, J&K, Ladakh, Delhi, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Nagaland, Haryana, the Court persued their affidavits on the status of compliance and granted 4 weeks' time to ensure that the funds made available by the States are disbursed. Proceedings against these states were directed to be closed. 

Additionally, the Bench also issued general directions to resolve any individual grievances raised by judicial officers regarding their pending dues or allowances.

These include (1) individual grievances be brought to the attention of the Committees of Judges of the High Courts (including issues relating to specific allowances); (2) The committees of Judges of High Courts shall in particular ensure that a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) in terms of  paragraphs 85,86 in the January 4 order is put in place by Sept 30, 2024;

The order of the Court on January 4 directed the constitution of an SOP by each High Court Committee for Service Conditions of the District Judiciary for setting out scheduled timelines for disbursing the pending arrears and allowances. 

(3) In order to resolve the pending issues, allowances etc., the committee by High Courts is requested to meet once every month. 

On Issues Of Risk Allowance And Advance Increments Pay

Notably, during the hearing, the State of Nagaland submitted that risk allowance for judicial officers could not be sanctioned as other civil servants in the State do not receive risk allowances. This was however disputed by Advocate BK Sharma appearing for the judicial officers. 

The Court, in view to resolve the complexity, directed the Committee of judges to verify whether a payment of risk allowance is made to other civil servants. It was also clarified that the rate of risk allowances be as per the rate paid to the civil servants. It was also clarified that if no risk allowance is paid to civil officers, then officers will not be entitled to it. 

Another issue raised by the Counsel for Nagaland was the clarification needed on granting Advance Increments Pay for higher qualifications at every stage of a new promotion of a judicial officer.  

As per the directions earlier, 3 advance increments were to be given once a judicial officer acquires a higher qualification and plus one, in the case the officer acquire a doctorate. 

"We have already complied with that, now what the officers say is that every promotion we should be given 3 increments, this a genuine obstacle that the state is facing," the counsel for Nagaland stated 

The said issue could not be resolved by the Judges of the Committee of the High Court, and an application seeking clarification on the aspect was now placed before the Top Court. Parameshwar and Sharma highlighted that this issue concerns other states as well.

The bench directed the two counsels to prepare a chart on the manner in which the implementation of the directions for ACP has taken place across the states in the country so that comprehensive directions pan-India can be issued in this regard. 

While deferring the issue of payment of ACP by the State of Nagaland for higher qualification, the CJI verbally observed: 

" We are prima facie of the view that this ACP should be granted at every stage, this is not a one time incentive."  

It may be noted that the Court has scheduled the hearing of the related issue of the non-payment of salaries of Patna and Allahabad High Court Judges for coming Friday. 

On July 11, the Court had given a final deadline of August 20 for several defaulting states to file compliance affidavits.

On the last hearing, the court was informed that the following states have still not complied with the January 4 directions : (i) Tamil Nadu; (ii) Madhya Pradesh; (iii) Andhra Pradesh; (iv) West Bengal; (v) Chhattisgarh; (vi) Delhi; (vii) Assam; (viii) Nagaland; (ix) Meghalaya; (x) Himachal Pradesh; (xi) J&K; (xii) Ladakh; (xiii) Jharkhand; (xiv) Kerala; (xv) Bihar; (xvi) Haryana; (xvii) Odisha. 

Notably, the Court in its judgement on January 4 had directed the states to implement the recommendations of the Second National Judicial Pay Commission (SNJPC) regarding pay and allowances for judicial officers, and to pay the arrears by February 29.

Background

In July 2022, the Supreme Court had directed the implementation of enhanced pay scale as recommended by the Second National Judicial Pay Commission with effect from January 1, 2016. The bench of CJI NV Ramana, Justices Krishna Murari and Hima Kohli also directed the Centre and States to pay the arrears to the officers in 3 instalments - 25% in 3 months, another 25% in next 3 months and balance by June 30, 2023. Revised directions on disbursal of arrears were passed by the Court in May 2023.

The Second National Judicial Pay Commission was constituted by the Apex Court in 2017 to review the pay scale and other conditions of Judicial Officers belonging to the district judiciary all over the country. A Bench comprising Justices J Chelameswar and Abdul Nazeer had appointed former Supreme Court Judge Justice PV Reddy as commission Chairman and former Kerala High Court Judge and Senior Supreme Court lawyer R Basant as members.

Case Title: All India Judges Association v. UoI and Ors., WP(C) No. 643/2015 

Click Here To Read/Download Order