Supreme Court Passes Guidelines On Appointment Of Ad-Hoc Judges In HCs Under Article 224A

CASE AT HAND

• Recently, on Monday, the Supreme Court passed a slew of guidelines regarding the appointment of ad-hoc judges in High Courts under Article 224A of the Constitution.
• Former Chief Justice of India SA Bobde, Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Surya Kant passed the judgment in the case Lok Prahari vs Union of India. Lok Prahari s Union of India. Lok Prahari, an NGO, had approached the Top Court through a PIL filed under Article 32 seeking the invocation of Article 224A to tackle the problem of mounting case arrears in High Courts.
• Article 224A enables a Chief Justice of a High Court, with the previous consent of the President, to request a former High Court judge to "sit and act as a judge" of the High Court to hear cases. The provision has been invoked very rarely in the judicial history of India.

COURTS CONTENTIONS

• In this case the number of ad hoc Judges should be in the range of two to five in a High Court.
• The appointment should be for a period between two to three years.
• The first and foremost primary objective being to deal with long pending arrears, the said objective will be sub-served by assigning more than five year old cases to the ad hoc Judges so appointed.
• It was decided that the Court it would not be permissible for an ad hoc Judge to perform any other legal work whether it be advisory, of arbitration or appearance.

FURTHER CONTENTIONS OF THE COURT

• The Court held that the dignity must be maintained consequently, emoluments and allowances of an ad hoc Judge should be at par with a permanent Judge of that Court at the relevant stage of time minus the pension.
• As far as housing and accommodation is concerned, either the rent-free accommodation should be made available or the housing allowance should be provided on the same terms and conditions.

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