Even as ‘delay’ on account of backlog has been flagged as serious concern at frequent intervals, High Courts have failed make appointment of judges on ad hoc basis have been appointed in high courts so far to tackle pending criminal cases. Supreme Court cleared the decks for it last year yet the high courts have not evinced interest in this direction.
According to people aware of the procedure to appoint Supreme Court and high court judges, none of the 25 high courts have recommended names for appointment as ad-hoc judges.Concerned over the pendency of over 18 lakh criminal cases, the Supreme Court had on January 30, 2025, allowed the high courts to appoint ad-hoc judges, not exceeding 10 per cent of the court’s total sanctioned strength.
However, the Union law ministry is yet to get any recommendation from any of the high court collegiums to appoint retired judges on an ad hoc basis.Article 224A of the Constitution allows the appointment of retired judges as ad-hoc judges in high courts to help manage case backlog.According to the laid-down procedure, the respective high court collegiums send recommendations or names of candidates to be appointed as HC judges to the Department of Justice in the law ministry. The department then adds inputs and details on the candidates before forwarding them to the Supreme Court Collegium.
The SC Collegium then takes a final call and recommends to the government the appointment of the selected persons as judges.The President signs the ‘warrant of appointment’ of the newly-appointed judge.The procedure to appoint ad-hoc judges will be the same except that the President will not sign the warrant of appointment. But the assent of the president will be sought for appointing ad-hoc judges.Except in one case, there is no precedent of appointing retired judges as ad-hoc HC judges, officials said.
In a judgment on April 20, 2021, on the appointment of ad-hoc judges in the high courts, the top court had imposed certain conditions. However, later a special Supreme Court bench comprising then Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justices B R Gavai (another former CJI) and Surya Kant (incumbent CJI) had relaxed certain conditions and kept some in abeyance.
The verdict, which was authored by former Chief Justice S A Bobde, directed retired high court judges to be appointed as ad-hoc ones for a period of two to three years to clear the backlog.“The ad-hoc judges will sit in a bench presided over by a sitting judge of the high court and decide pending criminal appeals,” said the apex court’s order.
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