SC flags concerns over meagre pension for district judges, asks Centre to find way out

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday flagged issues pertaining to meagre pension being given to district judges, and asked the Centre to resolve these at the earliest.

“We, being the guardian of the district judiciary, urge you (the attorney general and the solicitor general) to sit together with the amicus curiae and find a way out,” a bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud said. Some of these are “extremely hard cases”, the CJI said and referred to a case of a district judge, who was suffering from cancer, and said that several petitions are being filed by district judges in the top court raising pension-related grievances. “District judges are only getting Rs 15,000 as pension. District judges come to high courts and generally they are elevated to HCs at the age of 56 and 57 years and they retire with pension of Rs 30,000 per month,” the bench also comprising justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said.

The CJI said very few high court judges get arbitration matters and moreover, at the age of 60 years, they cannot go for the legal practice. “Look at their social profile also... they do not get arbitration matters,” the bench said.

Attorney General R Venkataramani and Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, sought some time to argue the case related to pension aspects of district court judges. The bench took note of the submissions and deferred the hearing to August 27 on a plea filed by the All India Judges Association seeking implementation of welfare measures for retired judges.

Meanwhile, the top court was apprised by lawyer K Parmeswar, who is assisting the court as amicus curiae (a friend of court), that several states have complied with the Second National Judicial Pay Commission (SNJPC) recommendations on the payment of arrears of pension and other retirement benefits to judicial officers.

Now the states have started filing compliance affidavits, the amicus curiae told the bench on Thursday. On July 11, the top court had summoned the chief and finance secretaries of several states and Union Territories for non-compliance of the SNJPC recommendations.