Supreme Court Proposes To Appoint Ad-Hoc Judges In High Courts With High Criminal Appeals Pendency

The Supreme Court today (January 21) proposed to modify its earlier decision which said that ad hoc judges can be appointed in High Courts only when vacancy is 20% or more of the total sanctioned strength of the High Court. The special bench of CJI Sanjiv Khanna and Justices BR Gavai and Suryakant was hearing the matter relating to the pending appointment of Ad Hoc Judges in various High Courts in light of the 2021 decision in Lok Prahari through its General Secretary V N Shukla IAS (Retd) vs Union of India. Notably in Lok Prahari Case, the Court laid down a slew of guidelines regarding the appointment of ad-hoc judges in High Courts under Article 224A of the Constitution to tackle the issue of mounting pendency of cases. Today, CJI highlighted that the bench has been called considering the huge pendency of criminal appeals in several high courts. He added, "Per judge pendency is also very high is some HCs, we have a feeling that criminal appeals before the Division Bench can be taken up by one sitting judge as the senior judge and one ad hoc judge" Referring to Paragraphs 54 and 55 of the Lok Prahari Case, the CJI addressed the need for a possible modification of the decision, to the extent of the embargo imposed - that ad hoc judges can only be appointed where the pending vacancies in permanent appointments are 20% or more of the sanctioned strength. "We have to therefore partly modify or put in abeyance certain Lok Prahari part ....that until unless you have 80% of the sanctioned strength of the working, no ad hoc judges can be appointed." Notably, the relevant paragraphs of the decision read : 54. We have already observed that the recourse to Article 224A is not an alternative to regular appointments. In order to emphasise this aspect, we clarify that if recommendations have not been made for more than 20% of the regular vacancies then the trigger for recourse to Article 224A would not arise.55. In this behalf we may take note of the data placed before us which would suggest that there are only ten High Courts having fewer than 20% vacancies as on 1.4.2021; seven High Courts having fewer than 10% vacancies in permanent appointments but then there may be additional Judges and there are cases which are in the pipeline. Thus, the parameter we have adopted is that, at least, the recommendations should have been made leaving not more than 20% vacancies in order to take recourse to Article 224A He clarified that the modification would be only to the extent of dealing with the pending criminal appeals, where the bench should be allowed to have one ad hoc judge and one sitting judge as the presiding judge. "Only with the condition that Ad Hoc judges will be sitting with the Judges in the criminal appeals, to that extent, we require that modification." The CJI, citing the official data stated that 63.000 criminal appeals are pending in Allahabad High Court, 13000 pending appeals in Jharkhand High Court, Karnataka High Court has 20,000 appeals pending, Patna High Court has 21000 pending, Rajasthan with 8,000 appeals, P&H High Court again has 21000 appeals pending. Sr Advocate Arvind Dattar who appeared in the Lok Prahari case, mentioned that about 4 High Courts constituted 54% of the pendency. Attorney General R Venkataramani also appeared for the Union of India. The bench has asked the AG and other counsels to assist in the present issue and passed the following order : " We would like the learned Counsels and the Attorney General to address whether the ad hoc judges can be appointed to sit in the division bench for the disposal of criminal appeals listed before the Division Benches of the High Courts. Reference is drawn to paragraphs 54 and 55 of the said judgment"The matter will now be heard next Tuesday at 3:30 PM. Case Details : LOK PRAHARI THROUGH ITS GENERAL SECRETARY S.N.SHUKLA I.A.S. (RETD) Versus UNION OF INDIA AND ORS.|W.P.(C) No. 1236/2019Click Here To Read/Download Order

Supreme Court Proposes To Appoint Ad-Hoc Judges In High Courts With High Criminal Appeals Pendency

Anmol Kaur Bawa

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