A Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice of India SA Bobde, Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Surya Kant on April 19, 2021 issued a set of directions regarding the appointment of ad-hoc judges in High Courts under Article 224A of the Constitution.
- The judgment was passed in the case Lok Prahari vs Union of India.
- Article 224A enables a Chief Justice of a High Court, with the previous consent of the President, to request a former High Court judge to “sit and act as a judge” of the High Court to hear cases.
Five trigger points to invoke Article 224A
According to the Live Law, the Apex court has laid down 5 trigger points when the process under Article 224A can be invoked. These Points cannot be singular and there can be more than one eventuality where it arises. these are:
- If the vacancies are more than 20 per cent of the total sanctioned strength.
- The cases in a particular category are pending for over five years.
- More than 10 per cent of the backlog of pending cases are over five years old,
- The percentage of the rate of disposal is lower than the institution of the cases either in a particular subject matter or generally in the Court.
- Even if there are not many old cases pending, but depending on the jurisdiction, a situation of mounting arrears is likely to arise if the rate of disposal is consistently lower than the rate of filing over a period of a year or more.
