Will Centre raise SC judges’ retirement age to stop Justice Gogoi from becoming CJI?

As the Monsoon Session of Parliament started on Wednesday, news that Centre is contemplating raising the age bar of Supreme Court judges’ retirement from 65 to 67 years is doing the rounds. For the judges of High Courts, the age limit is apparently being increased to 64 years from 62 at present.

The objective behind raising the age limit for Supreme Court judges clearly seems to be prolonging the tenure of the present Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra, accused by many of favouring the ruling party in his judgments.

It’s important to note here that Justice Ranjan Gogoi is in line to become the next Chief Justice of India after Justice Misra. The central government is said to be unhappy with Justice Gogoi and is believed to be pulling all stops to keep him from being promoted to the top post.

Justice Chelameswar, who had held an unprecedented press conference with four senior SC judges against the present government’s interference in the functioning of the judiciary, had also expressed the same apprehension. He had told National Herald that if that happened, then it would be very unfortunate.

Prashant Bhushan has said that raising the age limit would only be beneficial for CJI Misra.

Although senior advocate Vrinda Grover says that by leaking this kind of information, the government wants to evaluate people’s reaction to this and how much opposition it may face if it goes ahead with this decision of raising the age limit of judges’ retirement.

If a huge ruckus is created over this, then the government may not bring this proposal. According to Vrinda, it is now a well-known fact that the present government wants a complete control over judiciary. But how far is it willing to go for this will only be known when the government brings a concrete proposal on it.

Dr Anup Surendranath of the National Law University explains that for raising the age limit for the retirement of the supreme Court judges, the government will have to introduce an amendment to the constitution.

For this, a two-third majority in both the houses of the Parliament and support of half the state assemblies would be required. The ruling NDA government does not have this kind of majority.

But the Law Commission has already made a recommendation in this regard. And the central government is also said to be thinking of making this recommendation on the basis of this proposal.

(Translated from Hindi by Pragati Saxena).