The Supreme Courtroom was knowledgeable right this moment that almost all Excessive Courts are in favour of enhancing the retirement age of district judges to 61/62 years, whereas a number of States and Union Territories are both opposing the transfer or are but to take a closing resolution on it.
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohana was listening to the All India Judges Affiliation case, through which the Court had recently directed all States/UTs to think about enhancing the retirement age of district judges to 61/62 years after consulting their respective Excessive Courts.
Throughout right this moment’s listening to, the Courtroom orally noticed that the providers of presidency workers and judicial officers can’t be equated, as judicial officers enter service at a considerably extra superior age.
The Courtroom mentioned that there’s a hole of atleast 3-4 years within the age of entry into the 2 fields, due to this fact a distinction of two years within the retirement age of judicial officers and authorities servants is totally justified.
The Courtroom additional opined that States/UTs should resist the opposition statedly being skilled on the problem of enhancement of district judges’ retirement age, as whereas a authorities worker can enter their service at round 18 years of age and retire at round 60 years, an individual would atleast be 27-28 years previous once they enter judicial service (minimal 35 years previous in case of direct recruitment as ADJ). A judicial officer should due to this fact be compensated by way of larger retirement age, the Courtroom opined.
The Courtroom additionally didn’t discover advantage within the floor that enhancement of the retirement age of district judges would create monetary burden. It noticed that the States/UTs, by holding the district judges in service for a pair extra years, would be capable to defer fee of retiral advantages, pension and so on. to them, which might notably be a “bonanza” for revenue-deficit states/UTs.
Whereas the Courtroom was knowledgeable that many of the Excessive Courts are in settlement with the enhancement of the retirement age, the stance of the States/UTs was conveyed thus-
States/UTs against enhancement: Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Kerala, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Uttarakhand, UP and Odisha;
States/UTs nonetheless contemplating enhancement: Assam (agreeable topic to distinguishing of 4.5 lakh authorities workers), Bihar, Goa, Gujarat, Tripura, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, and Himachal Pradesh;
States/UTs acceptable to enhancement: Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Sikkim and Puducherry (primary approval for 61, will think about 62).
Throughout the listening to, the CJI impressed upon the non-agreeable states/UTs to come back again with a constructive response. He commented, “When you go into the historical past of judicial providers, the age of retirement of judicial officers has all the time been larger than authorities servants previously. In between there are some parity grounds…age of retirement of presidency workers was additionally enhanced. But when we go by historic information, the age of retirement of judicial officers has all the time been larger. Supreme Courtroom judgement could be very clear on this level. Judicial providers not comparable with authorities providers…Not one of the causes given have any authorized or factual backup.”
The CJI identified that within the earlier order, the Courtroom had rejected the argument of economic burden and distinction in retirement age of presidency workers, which have been raised by the States. The CJI requested the States to think about the observations in the previous order and take a choice.
ASG SD Sanjay, for Bihar, defined that the state is contemplating the problem from a bigger perspective, as a result of as soon as it takes a choice, younger individuals could not get new jobs. “as of late of protests and demonstrations in all places…the second they arrive up into arms, that creates additional legislation and order drawback within the state. So the state is taking a while to think about” he mentioned.
At one level, Senior Advocate Siddharth Bhatnagar (Amicus) claimed that as per a question response in Rajya Sabha, in December 2025, there have been 1744 vacancies of district decide posts throughout India. He additionally flagged the problems arising from retired district judges coming again after new judges have taken over their vacant posts. On this regard, CJI Kant underlined challenges posed by some district judges taking on different assignments after retirement (like in Tribunals). “We’ll attempt to discover some by way of media” he mentioned.
The matter has been posted after 2 weeks, with an expectation that the states/UTs remaining to simply accept the enhancement would come again with a constructive response.
Look: Senior Advocates Vikas Singh and Siddharth Bhatnagar, ASG SD Sanjay, Advocate Generals of States/UTs
Case Title: ALL INDIA JUDGES ASSOCIATION AND ORS. v. UNION OF INDIA AND ORS., W.P.(C) No. 1022/1989
