Govt: No proposal to increase SC, HC judges’ retirement age

According to Article 124(2) of the Constitution, the age of retirement for Supreme Court judges is 65. As per Article 217(1) of the Constitution, High Court judges retire at 62. Initially, the retirement age of High Court judges was 60, which was later in 1963 increased to 62 through the 114th constitutional amendment.

The idea of increasing the age of retirement for judges has been mooted for decades as a solution for dealing with mounting pendency of cases and judicial vacancies. It has also been discussed in the context of ensuring serving judges do not look for post-retirement jobs from the executive.

Article 124(7) of the Constitution bars judges of the Supreme Court from practicing before any forum, while for High Court judges, an amendment was brought in 1956 to allow practice before the Supreme Court and High Courts other than the one they served in.

In 1974, the 58th report of the Law Commission recommended bringing parity between age of retirement of judges of High Court and Supreme Court. In 2002, Justice Venkatachaliah Report – the report of National Commission to review the working of the Constitution – also recommended that the age of retirement should be increased for judges of High Courts and Supreme Court to 65 and 68, respectively.

Attorney General for India K K Venugopal has been one of the vocal advocates of increasing tenure of the judges, and has consistently spoken about it at every farewell of Supreme Court judges since 2017. In 2021, the Supreme Court had refused to entertain a PIL seeking uniform retirement age for judges of High Courts and the top court.