Attorney General for India, Shri K K Venugopal, recently made yet another pitch for increasing the age of retirement for judges of higher judiciary.
The Attorney General, Venugopal has earlier also been a vocal in advocating increasing tenure of the judges, and has consistently spoken about it at every farewell of Supreme Court judges since 2017. Currently, 62 is the retirement age for High Court judges and 65 for Supreme Court judges. Recently, he repeated his concerns during online farewell for Supreme Court judge, Subhash Reddy.
He asked why judges must retire at 65 when lawyers can comfortably argue even at the age of 70-75 years.
Even during farewell function of former Chief Justice Deepak Misra, it was reported in ndtv
Speaking at the farewell programme of outgoing Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, the law officer said that so far as judges are concerned, whether retired, they should not be allowed “to vegetate” and it is not easy to get good judges.
While deciding to activate a five-decade long dormant Article 224A to green signal appointment of retired High Court judges as tenure specified ad hoc judges, previously, a bench of former Chief Justice S A Bobde and then Justices S K Kaul and Surya Kant said the present retirement age of High Court judges at 62 years is probably the youngest in the world.
Article 224A of the Constitution allows the Chief Justice of a High Court to appoint a person who has been a judge earlier to sit as a judge of the court with previous consent of the president. This has been invoked thrice in the past and more or less has stayed dormant. It was last activated in 2021 to deal with pending cases.
