Mr Kapil Sibal’s article dated June 4 in The Hindu, on judges going on vacations, is spot on. Undeniably, judges deserve the vacations that the system provides them.
The common man’s anguish, however, is not with the judges going on vacations, but with the judiciary being on vacation and suffering full or partial shutdowns. There is a vital difference between the two.
These court vacations during summer, especially as also other periods in the calendar year, are by and large colonial legacies. They were institutionalised to allow British judges and barristers to escape the hot days and to work when the weather was more agreeable. Though not referred to by these names, the system mimicked the British system of the court calendar being broken up into four sessions.
In the UK, even today, these sessions of the higher judiciary are referred to as Michaelmas, Hilary, Easter and Trinity terms. A similar system was adopted in India by the British, so much so that when the Madras High Court was first established in 1862, it sat for only 12 weeks in a year in 4 sessions.
In 1947, the British left, but the hot weather did not. Therefore, summer vacations continued. Courts did not have the facility of air-conditioned rooms. By the time these facilities arrived, the habit and tradition of summer vacations for courts were set in stone.
When the backlogs aroused expressions of outrage, the system responded with a search for solutions. The 230th Law Commission report in 2009 suggested that the number of working days of judges must be increased to deal with the gargantuan problem of judicial backlogs at all levels. It said that vacations must be significantly curtailed.
Then, in 2014, then Chief Justice of India Justice RM Lodha chose a more measured path. He addressed a missive to the Chief Justices of the High Courts seeking their response to a proposal to keep courts working throughout the year. However, Justice Lodha, quite judiciously, did not attempt to invade into the vacations enjoyed by judges, but suggested that judges must signify every year, beforehand, the period when they would seek to go on leave. He offered that such an arrangement would enable the judges the full complement of vacations they would avail if courts had been on vacation and, yet, courts would not be shut.
The 133rd report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Law and Justice on court vacations, released in 2023, also favoured individual judges going on leave rather than the system shutting down for specified periods.
Notwithstanding all this, unfortunately, the status quo remains. The Supreme Court works for 193 days, the High Courts and civil courts for 210 days and the criminal trial courts for 245 days in a year.
It is undoubtedly true that we need to provide a fair deal and better working conditions to judges because the demands that the system makes on them are far higher than it makes on any other professional.
In this context, the following may be considered:
Judges must be given paid sabbaticals that may allow them to go abroad and learn from the most recent developments in justice dispensation in the world.
A stint in the judiciary is so demanding on time that it often runs the risk of making judges strangers to their own families. Therefore, perks must include the government picking up the bill for holidays by judges for short but significant periods with their own families.
A permanent, independent “Judicial Pay and Service Commission” for Supreme Court and High Court judges should be created by amending the “Salary, Allowances and Pension of Judges Act, 1958”, with automatic, indexed revisions and no executive discretion in individual cases.
Housing, medical care, security, domestic staff and educational facilities for judges’ dependants should be standardised nationally and expressly defined as “conditions of service”, funded through the Consolidated Fund under Articles 112 and 266 and not as discretionary administrative perks.
Workload-related conditions should improve by revising sanctioned strength, enhancing research staff and law clerks under Articles 146 and 229, guided by the principles of timely justice and case‑flow management including integration of the state-of-the-art technology that would ease considerably the strain on the judiciary.
Structured, periodic “continuing judicial education” through the National and State Judicial Academies should be treated as part of service, with time and resources guaranteed by statute, extending the training emphasis to higher courts.
A confidential, peer-based evaluation system may be institutionalised to aid elevation to the Supreme Court, ensuring integrity and competence assessments while preserving independence;
The “in‑house procedure” for dealing with complaints against judges should be codified in a parliamentary framework supplementing the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968, consistent with observations in C Ravichandran Iyer v. Justice AM Bhattacharjee (1995), to balance accountability with protection from vexatious complaints. The Supreme Court in that case warned that dishonest complaints can have a devastating effect on the morale of a judge. “The vestment of authority may remain”, the Court observed, “but the aura of respect and confidence so essential to the judicial function would be forever dissipated”.
Court infrastructure, residences, libraries, e‑courts facilities and staff norms should be expressly declared part of “conditions of service” of judges, so that drastic cuts or neglect can be challenged as being in violation of Article 50 (separation of judiciary from executive).
Finally, harmonising service conditions across all High Courts (removing inter‑State disparities in allowances, staff and facilities} under Entries 77–78, List I, Seventh Schedule would make judicial careers more attractive and reduce non‑merit factors in transfers or elevations.
If meaningful relief is to be granted to judges who face onerous challenges in the discharge of their duties, the above would serve their cause much better than institutionalising anachronisms like court vacations.
NL Rajah is a Senior Advocate practicing before the Madras High Court.