Has any Indian High Court appointed retired judges on ad hoc basis before?

The Supreme Court Collegium in a rare move on Tuesday cleared a proposal to appoint five retired judges as ad hoc judges of the Allahabad High Court to deal with its staggering backlog of cases.

However, this is not the first time that Article 224A, which allows such ad hoc appointments in the High Courts, has been invoked. There have been at least three such appointments in the past.

Justice Suraj Bhan was a judge of the Madhya Pradesh High Court between 1965 and 1971. He was appointed as an ad hoc Judge of the same High Court on November 23 in 1972 for a period of one year or till the disposal of election petitions entrusted to him.

Justice P Venugopal was a judge of the Madras High Court between 1979 and 1981. He was appointed to a Commission of Inquiry to investigate certain incidents that occurred in Coimbatore in July 1981. In March 1982, he was appointed to a one-man commission to inquire into incidents of communal riots. Later, he was appointed to the post of ad hoc judge of the Madras High Court and his term was renewed for a period of one year from August 19, 1983.

Justice OP Srivastava was a judge of the Allahabad High Court between 2002 and 2007. Soon after his retirement, he was appointed as an ad hoc judge of the Allahabad High Court. He was one of the Members of the Special Bench constituted for hearing of the Ayodhya matter. The objective was to ensure “continued and continuous hearing” of the matter. 

Considering the unprecedented situation arising from the backlog of cases pending in different High Courts, the Supreme Court in 2021 had issued guidelines for the appointment of ad-hoc judges. Last year, the top court backed it with another ruling.

Pursuant to that, the Collegium on Tuesday recommended that Justices Mohd Faiz Alam Khan, Mohd Aslam, Syed Aftab Husain Rizvi, Renu Agarwal and Jyotsna Sharma be appointed as ad hoc judges in the Allahabad High Court.