Former Allahabad High Court judge moves Supreme Court seeking one rank one pension for retired service quota judges

The Supreme Court recently sought the response of the Allahabad High Court and the Central and Uttar Pradesh governments on a plea seeking one rank one pension for retired service quota judges, i.e. High Court judges who were appointed from the district judiciary and not the bar [Justice Ajit Singh (Retd.) vs Union of India and ors]..A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud with Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra on February 19 issued notice on the petition by retired Justice Ajit Singh..Justice Singh, who was appointed to the High Court from the Uttar Pradesh Higher Judiciary in 2018, currently gets a pension of ₹15,005 per month after retiring as a High Court judge on March 29, 2023.In his plea, he has challenged a Union Law Ministry letter restraining High Court judges elevated from the district judiciary (service) from being eligible for the pension available to those elevated from the bar regardless of the length of service.The tenure at the district judiciary is arbitrarily not counted towards determining the pension of service quota High Court judges while in the case of judges appointed from the bar, a period of ten years at the bar is counted as experience at the bench for determining pension, his plea said.Further, the current pension rate is 'not adequate for survival befitting the status of the petitioner,' the plea said. "It is arbitrary to take stand that a period of ten years will be added in case of judges who are elevated from Bar for computation of pension and other retiral benefits but the period of service as rendered by High Court Judges during judicial service before elevation will not be added to the length of service for computation of pension and other retiral benefits," the plea added. Thus, the petitioner has sought the quashing of the Law Ministry's letter and has also prayed that the pension for retired High Court judges appointed from district judiciary should be equivalent to the pension for High Court judges appointed from the bar.This should be done by taking into account the tenure of service as as judge of the district judiciary, the petitioner submitted. .Senior Advocate and retired Allahabad High Court judge Sudhir Kumar Saxena with advocates Aviral Saxena, Piyush Thanvi, Mohd Imran Ahmad, and Shrawani appeared for retired Justice Singh..Recently, the Supreme Court had observed in another case that retired district judges were not being given enough pension.The Court had also stated that some High Court judges were not being paid pension after retirement."Some High Court judges are also not being paid. Look into this," the Court had told the Central government. .[Read order]