No Proposal To Increase Retirement Age Of SC And HC Judges, Govt Tells Parliament
The government informed Rajya Sabha on Thursday that there was no proposal to increase the retirement age of Supreme Court and high court judges. While Supreme Court judges retire at the age of 65 years, judges of the 25 high courts retire at 62 years.
“No sir. There is no proposal to increase the retirement age of Supreme Court and high court judges,” Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju said in a written reply.
The Constitution (114th Amendment) Bill was introduced in 2010 to increase the retirement age of high court judges to 65 years. However, it was not taken up for consideration in Parliament and lapsed with the dissolution of the 15th Lok Sabha, he said.
Chief Justice of India N V Ramana will retire on August 26. Justice Uday Umesh Lalit is the senior-most judge in the top court after Justice Ramana and is next in line to be the Chief Justice of India. The conversation around increasing the retirement age of judges has been doing the rounds in respect of the ever-rising judicial pendency.
In the United States of America, there is no retirement age for the judges and judges retire only when they choose to. There are in total 9 judges in the US Supreme Court and all matters are taken up en banc, meaning thereby "full bench". No retirement age ensures independence and impartiality of judges as there is no temptation to hold post retirement sinecures.
