New Delhi, Feb 26: The government made it clear that it has no plans to take the services of retired judges to run courtrooms despite mounting pendency of cases and a large number of vacancies in the judiciary.
“No madam”, said Law Minister D V Sadananda Gowda in a written reply in the Lok Sabha on Thursday to a question on whether the government proposes to take the services of retired judges or appoint judges on ad hoc basis “in view of huge number of cases pending in courts”.
Article 224 A of the Constitution states that the Chief Justice of a high court, with the previous consent of the President (Centre), request any person who has held the office of a judge of that court or any other high court to sit and act as a judge of the high court for that state.
There are nearly three crore cases pending before the judiciary, including the Supreme Court, the 24 high courts and various subordinate courts.
As per the latest government data, following a decision to increase the number of judges by 25 per cent, the sanctioned strength of the 24 high courts have increased to 1017 judges as of June, 2015, as against 906 in March, 2014.
As on January 1, the sanctioned strength stood at 1044.
The 24 high courts disposed 17,34,542 cases in 2014. The pendency in the high courts was estimated at 41.53 lakh at the end of December, 2014, according to Law Ministry data.
