Ranjan Gogoi seeks more judges in SC, HCs

New Delhi: The Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi has sought an increase in the strength of Supreme Court and high court judges and raise their retirement age of high court judeges from existing 62 years to 65 years at par with the retirement age of top court judges.

Besides seeking an increase in the strength of the high court judges, the Chief Justice Gogoi has also sought term appointment of retired Supreme Court judges to deal with the pendency of 58,699 cases which was increasing due to the increased filing of new cases.

In a letter to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Mr Gogoi has written, “You would recall that way back in 1988, about three decades ago, the judge strength of the Supreme Court was increased from 18 to 26, and then again after two decades in 2009, it was increased to 31, including the CJI, to expedite the disposal of cases to keep pace with the rate of institution of cases.’’ CJI Gogoi has written three letters to the Prime Minister Modi on the issue.

Seeking the term appointment of retired top court judge to address the issue of the pendency of 58,699 cases, which were increasing by the day due to fresh filings of cases, Mr Gogoi has said that due to the lack of required number of judges, the number of Constitution benches to decide important cases involving questions of law were not being formed.

“I request you to kindly consider, on top priority, to augment the judge-strength in the SC appropriately so that it can function more efficiently and effectively as it will go a long way to attain ultimate goal of rendering timely justice to the litigant public,” Mr Gogoi has written to the Prime Minister Modi.