14 states agree to raise district judges' retirement age to 62

The Supreme Court welcomed 14 states agreeing to raise district judges' retirement age to 62. The move advances efforts for a uniform retirement policy across India's district judiciary.

In Short

• Supreme Court declined urgent hearings for judges filing separate individual petitions
• Bench said the broader issue concerns the court and states
• Service rule amendments should preferably be completed within two months

The Supreme Court on Monday expressed satisfaction that 14 states had agreed to raise the retirement age of district judicial officers from 60 to 62 years, news agency Press Trust of India reported.

The court, however, refused to urgently list separate petitions filed by judges who are about to retire or have recently retired, saying it did not approve of judicial officers filing individual pleas when the broader matter was already listed for hearing.

“This pertains to the persuasive jurisdiction of this court. The issue is between the Supreme Court and the states,” a bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana said while declining to list the individual petitions.

The Chief Justice said 14 states had so far agreed to increase the retirement age. “We are hopeful that others will also follow,” he said.

Senior advocate Ranjit Kumar sought the listing of one such petition, saying judicial officers were retiring every day, PTI reported.

On September 4, the bench had directed states to increase the retirement age of judicial officers from 60 to 62 years.

It had said judicial officers in Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal who retired on or after March 31 this year should be given the option to rejoin judicial service if they had not taken up another job.

The court had directed these states, which had agreed to the increase, to amend their service rules and raise the retirement age in the judicial service to 62 years. The extension would be subject to the high court assessing the suitability of the judicial officer concerned. The bench had said the amendments should preferably be made within two months.

“Pending amendment of the rules, no judicial officer in the aforesaid states who has attained the age of 60 years shall superannuate until he attains the age of 62 years, subject to an assessment of his suitability and performance by the high court concerned,” the court had said.

The Supreme Court had also directed Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Kerala, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Telangana, Tripura, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, the National Capital Territory of Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, and Puducherry to reconsider their decisions on increasing the retirement age of judicial officers.

The bench had earlier said states could not cite the financial burden as a reason to oppose the increase and had asked state governments to reconsider the issue.

The court was hearing a petition seeking a uniform increase in the retirement age of district judiciary judges from 60 to 62 years across the country. Supreme Court judges retire at 65, while high court judges retire at 62.

The matter comes against the backdrop of a 2002 Supreme Court judgment that declined to accept the Justice K Jagannatha Shetty Commission's recommendation to raise the retirement age of district judges to 62. Since then, some states, including Telangana and Madhya Pradesh, have moved towards increasing the retirement age.

In summary, 14 states have agreed to raise the retirement age of district judicial officers to 62, while the Supreme Court has asked the remaining states and Union territories concerned to reconsider their position and declined to urgently hear individual petitions.

- Ends