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The Parliament has also been called upon to consider amending various statutes so that experienced advocates can be appointed as Chairpersons of various commissions and other forums.
The Bar Council of India has issued a press release stating that in the joint meeting of all State Bar Councils, the office-bearers of High Court Bar Associations and the Bar Council of India itself, held last week, it has been unanimously resolved that the age of superannuation of judges should be raised.
"...the meeting unanimously came to a conclusion that there should be immediate amendment in the Constitution and the retirement age of Judges of High Court should be enhanced from 62 to 65 years and the age of superannuation of the Judges of Supreme Court should be enhanced to 67 years", the press release said.
The joint meeting also resolved to propose to the Parliament to consider amending the various statutes so that experienced Advocates could also be appointed as the Chairpersons of various commissions and other forums.
As per the press release, a copy of the resolution has been communicated to the Prime Minister of India and the Union Minister for Law and Justice for immediate action.
It is to be noted that in July, Union Minister for Law and Justice Kiren Rijiju informed Parliament that there was no proposal to increase the retirement age of Supreme Court and High Court judges.
“The Constitution (114th Amendment) Bill was introduced in 2010 to increase the retirement age of high court judges to 65. However, it was not taken up for consideration in Parliament and lapsed with the dissolution of the 15 Lok Sabha,” Rijiju said in a written reply to Rajya Sabha.
Attorney General for India KK Venugopal had also expressed the need for increasing the age of retirement of judges upon Ex-CJI NV Ramana's retirement. "This is no age for a judge to retire," he said. In fact, he has consistently spoken about the need to increase the age of retirement of judges at every farewell of Supreme Court judges since 2017.
Earlier this month, Advocate Ashwini Upadhyay had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting him to direct the Ministry of Law and Justice to take steps for increasing the retirement age of judges of subordinate courts to 65 years and judges of High Courts and Supreme Court to 70 years.
Upadhyay had argued that our judiciary would take around 100 years to clear the backlog and the reason for such backlog is inadequate judge strength, which is around 20 judges per one million people, as against Australia's 58 per million, the United Kingdom's 100 and the United States of America's 130 per million.
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