Year after SC nod, no ad-hoc judges appointed in HCs to tackle pendency

No ad-hoc judges have been appointed in High Courts so far to tackle pending criminal cases, nearly a year after the Supreme Court cleared the decks for it, as the High Courts have not evinced interest. According to people aware of the procedure to appoint Supreme Court and High Court judges, none of the 25 High Courts have recommended names for appointment as ad-hoc judges.

Concerned over the pendency of over 18 lakh criminal cases, the Supreme Court had on January 30, 2025, allowed the High Courts to appoint ad-hoc judges, not exceeding 10 per cent of the court’s total sanctioned strength.

However, the Union law ministry is yet to get any recommendation from any of the High Court collegiums to appoint retired judges on an ad hoc basis. Article 224A of the Constitution allows the appointment of retired judges as ad-hoc judges in High Courts to help manage case backlog.

According to the laid-down procedure, the respective High Court collegiums send recommendations or names of candidates to be appointed as HC judges to the Department of Justice in the law ministry. The department then adds inputs and details on the candidates before forwarding them to the Supreme Court Collegium.

The SC Collegium then takes a final call and recommends to the Government the appointment of the selected persons as judges.

The President signs the ‘warrant of appointment’ of the newly-appointed judge.

The procedure to appoint ad-hoc judges will be the same, except that the President will not sign the warrant of appointment.

But the assent of the President will be sought for appointing ad-hoc judges. Except in one case, there is no precedent of appointing retired judges as ad-hoc HC judges, officials said.

In a judgment on April 20, 2021, on the appointment of ad-hoc judges in the High Courts, the top court had imposed certain conditions. However, later, a special Supreme Court bench comprising then Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justices BR Gavai (another former CJI) and Surya Kant (incumbent CJI) had relaxed certain conditions and kept some in abeyance.

The verdict, which was authored by former Chief Justice S A Bobde, directed retired High Court judges to be appointed as ad-hoc ones for a period of two to three years to clear the backlog.

While one condition said that the ad-hoc judges couldn’t be appointed if a High Court is working with 80 per cent of its sanctioned strength, the other said ad-hoc judges could sit separately on benches to deal with cases.

Relaxing the conditions, the court said that for the time being, the first condition shall be kept in abeyance.

The bench said each High Court should keep the appointment to two to five ad-hoc judges and not exceed 10 per cent of the total sanctioned strength.

“The ad-hoc judges will sit in a bench presided over by a sitting judge of the High Court and decide pending criminal appeals,” said the Supreme Court’s order.

The rarely used Article 224A of the Constitution deals with the appointment of ad-hoc judges in High Courts.

“The Chief Justice of a High Court for any state may at any time, with the previous consent of the President, request any person who has held the office of a Judge of that Court or of any other High Court to sit and act as a Judge of the High Court for that State.”