Income Criteria For Elevation As HC Judge: SC Collegium Relaxes Limit For SC/ST/OBC Persons & Govt Lawyers

The February 12 resolution of Supreme Court collegium recommending elevation of judges to Allahabad High Court contains a significant observation regarding income criteria.

The Collegium noted that some of the advocates recommended by the High Court Collegium were not meeting the criteria of minimum annual net professional income of Rs. 7 lakhs. 

Therefore, the Collegium of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justices A K Sikri and S A Bobde observed :

The Collegium considers it appropriate to relax the income criterion to a reasonable extent in cases where such recommendees belong to categories of SC/ST/OBC or represent Government in their capacity as Standing /Panel Counsel before the Courts.

Several names have been dropped by the Collegium for not meeting the professional income criteria. In December 2017, the Collegium rejected a recommendation from Calcutta HC on the sole ground of not meeting the income limit.

Last year, one recommendation from High Court of Kerala was also rejected on this sole ground.

This practice of rejecting a candidate solely on the ground of income limit, despite satisfying other suitability criteria, has attracted criticism from many sections of the Bar.

"the income generated by a lawyer depends on the field of his practice. It cannot be ruled out that advocates doing pro bono work or who specialise in a particular field may generate lesser comparative professional income than their counterparts who may be working in another field of law. The range also varies geographically. An advocate in Calcutta may earn less than one in Delhi. Insistence on any particular income, therefore, in my view is an important criterion for considering candidature, but must not be the sole criteria for rejecting one", Advocate Namit Saxena had opined in an article written in Live Law earlier..