Some of the complaints against judges are shockingly false: CJI SA Bobde in ad-hoc judges appointment case

Judges should not be made to feel insecure, Chief Justice of India (CJI) SA Bobde remarked on Thursday stating that many a time, complaints made against judges are "shockingly false.".A special bench of CJI SA Bobde, and Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Surya Kant was hearing a plea by NGO Lok Prahari seeking appointment of ad-hoc or additional judges to High Court as per Article 224A of the Constitution. .While perusing the suggestions made by the Central government in this regard, the top court noted that the position of judges cannot be made vulnerable. ."I am not agreeable to make the position of the judge so insecure and we have seen complaints made against judges and some of them are shockingly false. One has to be given security of tenure. They cannot be made vulnerable like this," the CJI said. .Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul concurred with the CJI stating that complaints crop up when someone is appointed a judge. "For every person appointed there will be 200 more saying why not me. In this environment, if one or two judges turn out to be slow we cannot be put the ad hoc judges system into questioning, too much fine-tuning will lead to this losing its objective," Justice Kaul said. .The Bench also brushed aside various other concerns raised by the Central government in appointing ad-hoc judges. The Centre had submitted that such appointments could be derogatory to the concerned judge who might be more interested in other lucrative avenues like arbitration. .The Chief Justice stated that it was perfectly possible given huge amount of pendency in high courts that even though all vacancies are filled, the Chief Justice may appoint ad-hoc judges to target a specific type of vacancy. "There are criminal appeals pending for 20 to 30 years," said the CJI. .Pointing as to how a Chief Justice may be able to hear other important matters if an ad-hoc judge is appointed, the CJI stated:"Let me tell you something, I could not hear a lot of constitution bench matters because there were other pressing cases that needed to be heard. If ad hoc judges are appointed then regular cases can be heard, constitution benches can be formed etc.".The Court has also made it clear that salaries and allowance of ad-hoc judges would have to be paid out of the Consolidated Fund of India. It also said that no such judge will be appointed without his/ her consent. "The fitness energy and willingness of the judge will be taken into account. he Constitution has left it to the CJI to decide. The CJI will definitely have a talk with the retired judge who is proposed to be appointed. If the judge think he has something better to do, he will say no. This is not bonded slavery," CJI Bobde said before the Bench reserved its verdict.

Some of the complaints against judges are shockingly false: CJI SA Bobde in ad-hoc judges appointment case

Debayan Roy

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