Supreme Court to relax ad-hoc judge appointments to tackle criminal appeal backlog in HCs

The Supreme Court on Tuesday indicated that it is contemplating relaxation of conditions for appointment of ad hoc judges (temporary judges) to High Courts in order to tackle the mounting pendency of criminal appeals [Lok Prahari v. Union of India]..To this end, a Special Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna and Justices BR Gavai and Surya Kant said that it could modify certain conditions outlined in an April 2021 judgment for the appointment of ad hoc judges.The Court added that once ad hoc judges are appointed, criminal appeals that are usually listed before Division Benches of High Courts could be heard by a Bench comprising of a regular single-judge and an ad hoc judge. The Court also sought the views of the Attorney General R Venkataramani in the matter and said that it will hear the matter on January 28 (Tuesday)."Let the Attorney General address (the question of) whether ad hoc judges can be appointed to sit in Division Benches to dispose of criminal appeals listed before Division Benches of High Courts. Re list next Tuesday at 3:30 PM," it ordered. .Notably, the top court had green lit the appointment of ad-hoc judges to High Courts for the first time by its April 2021 Judgment in the case of Lok Prahari v. Union of India.However, in the same ruling, the Court also warned against routinely resorting to appointing judges on an ad hoc basis instead of making regular judge appointments. Ad hoc judges cannot be viewed as a routine alternative to regular judges, it had observed. It had, therefore, set certain trigger points for the appointment of ad hoc judges.One of these trigger points was that ad hoc judges can be appointed only if the vacancies are more than 20 per cent of the sanctioned strength (paragraph 53 of the 2021 judgment). Other trigger points included situations such as when cases in a particular category are pending for five or more years or when more than 10 per cent of the backlog has been pending for five years or more or if the rate of institution of new cases is more than the rate of disposal.The Court is now mooting relaxation of the 20 percent threshold..The Special Bench today noted this condition may have to be relaxed to pave way for the faster appointment of ad hoc judges to tackle the acute pendency of criminal appeals in some High Courts."Reason why we have listed this matter because there is acute pendency of criminal appeals in some High Courts ... We have some data also. Per judge pendency is also very high in some High Courts. Thus we have a feeling that criminal appeals pending before Division Bench can be taken up by a sitting judge and an ad hoc judge," the CJI suggested.CJI Khanna explained that such a measure may be warranted given the large backlog of pending criminal appeals before some High Courts like the Allahabad High Court (with around 63,000 criminal appeals pending), and the High Courts in Jharkhand (13,099 criminal appeals pending), Karnataka (20,000), Patna (21,000), Punjab and Haryana (21,000) and Rajasthan (8,000)."Thus we have to modify and put in abeyance that part of the Lok Prahari judgment (of April 2021) which says that unless 80 percent vacancy is filled, an ad-hoc judge cannot be appointed. So we will modify that," the CJI said..Simplify process for appointment of ad-hoc judges to High Courts under Article 224A: Supreme Court.[Read Order].[Read Live Coverage]