Supreme Court Seeks Status Report From Union On Appointment Of Ad-Hoc Judges In High Courts

The Supreme Court has sought a status report from the Union Government regarding the appointment of ad-hoc judges in High Courts under Article 224A of the Constitution.

Article 224A enables a Chief Justice of a High Court, with the previous consent of the President, to request a former High Court judge to "sit and act as a judge" of the High Court to hear cases. The provision has been invoked very rarely in the judicial history of India.

In April 2021, the Supreme Court, after taking note of the increase in vacancies in High Courts, had stressed on the need to appoint ad-hoc judges and had issued a set of guidelines regarding the same. The directions were issued in a PIL filed by an organization named "Lok Prahari".

On September 14, 2022, a bench comprising Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, AS Oka and Vikram Nath sought a status report from the Union regarding any recommendation being made for ad-hoc judges. 

The bench also pondered on whether to relax the condition that there should be more than 20% vacancies to trigger the proceess of appointment of ad-hoc judges, considering the fact that some High Court have large number of vacancies and are also troubled with arrears in some specific subjects. The Attorney General was requested to address this aspect as well.

The case has been posted to September 27.

The order passed by the bench recorded as follows :

"Learned Attorney General submits that he needs sometime to file status report as to whether any recommendation on ad-hoc judges have been made and the fate thereof.

Another aspect, with experience, we are finding is that though we have put a bar of not more than 20% vacancies for making recommendation for ad-hoc judges, the fact remains that some of the Courts where there are large number of vacancies are also troubled with arrears and in some specific subjects.

We request learned Attorney General to give a thought to this process as to how this particular aspect can be addressed. List on 27th September, 2022 on the top of the Board".

In the judgment delivered in April 2021, the Supreme Court had laid down 5 trigger points which can activate the process under Article 224A.

The Trigger Point cannot be singular and there can be more than one eventuality where the it arises –

a.If the vacancies are more than 20% of the sanctioned strength.

b.The cases in a particular category are pending for over five years.

c.More than 10% of the backlog of pending cases are over five years old.

d.The percentage of the rate of disposal is lower than the institution of the cases either in a particular subject matter or generally in the Court.

e. Even if there are not many old cases pending, but depending on the jurisdiction, a situation of mounting arrears is likely to arise if the rate of disposal is consistently lower than the rate of filing over a period of a year or more.

The Court also emphasized that ad-hoc appointments cannot be a substitute for regular appointments. The objective is not to appoint ad-hoc judges instead of judges to be appointed to the regular strength of the High Court.

Case Title :Lok Prahari through its General Secretary V N Shukla IAS (Retd) vs Union of India and others

Click here to read/download the order