Year after SC nod, no ad-hoc judges appointed in HCs to tackle pendency

New Delhi: Nearly a year after the Supreme Court opened the door for appointing ad-hoc judges in high courts to reduce the mounting backlog of criminal cases, no such appointments have taken place, officials familiar with the process said. None of the country’s 25 high courts has so far recommended names for appointment, effectively stalling a mechanism cleared by the top court in January 2025.

The decision by the Supreme Court of India on January 30, 2025, was aimed at addressing the pendency of more than 18 lakh criminal cases across high courts. The court permitted high courts to appoint retired judges as ad-hoc judges, subject to a ceiling of 10 per cent of the court’s total sanctioned strength. Despite this, the Union law ministry has not received a single recommendation from any high court collegium, according to people aware of the developments.

Article 224A of the Constitution provides for the appointment of retired judges as ad-hoc judges in high courts to assist in clearing case backlogs. Officials said the provision has rarely been invoked, with only one known instance of such an appointment in the past.

Under the established procedure for judicial appointments, a high court collegium forwards its recommendations to the Department of Justice in the law ministry. The department adds its inputs and background details before sending the file to the Supreme Court Collegium, which takes a final view and recommends appointments to the government. The President then signs the warrant of appointment. In the case of ad-hoc judges, the process is largely similar, except that while the President’s assent is required, no warrant of appointment is issued.

The framework governing ad-hoc appointments was shaped by a Supreme Court judgment delivered on April 20, 2021. In that ruling, the court laid down conditions for appointing retired judges on an ad-hoc basis for a period of two to three years to help clear pending criminal appeals. The judgment was authored by former Chief Justice S A Bobde.

Among the original conditions were that ad-hoc judges could not be appointed if a high court was functioning with at least 80 per cent of its sanctioned strength, and that such judges could sit separately to hear cases. Subsequently, a special bench comprising then Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justices B R Gavai and Surya Kant revisited the issue and relaxed some of these conditions, keeping certain restrictions in abeyance. The bench said that, for the time being, the 80 per cent strength requirement would not apply. It also directed that each high court should appoint between two and five ad-hoc judges, without exceeding 10 per cent of its sanctioned strength. “The ad-hoc judges will sit in a bench presided over by a sitting judge of the high court and decide pending criminal appeals,” the court said. Article 224A states: “The Chief Justice of a High Court for any State may at any time, with the previous consent of the President, request any person who has held the office of a Judge of that Court or of any other High Court to sit and act as a Judge of the High Court for that State.”

Despite this clarified framework and judicial backing, the absence of recommendations from high courts has meant that the provision remains unused, even as criminal case pendency continues to weigh heavily on the judicial system.