Retirement age for Supreme Court and High Court Judges can be made 65 years


Former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court Ajit Prakash Shah on Saturday suggested that the retirement age for the Judges of Supreme Court and High Court be made 65 years with no post-retirement assignments thereafter.

While delivering a lecture organised by the Nani Palkhiwala Foundation and Govind Swaminadhan Trust, Mr. Shah said that some of the Judge, while approaching the age of retirement, started hunting for jobs that were in the hands of the Executive. He suggested that the age of retirement for Judges should be made 65 years.

He said that this is the only way of ensuring that there is no unwarranted interferences of the Executive under the garb of providing these post-retirement assignments.

He said that corruption had spread its tentacles beyond the conventional forms of bribery. He said an equally vicious form of corruption arouse out of the interaction between the Judiciary and the Executive, as well as from the relationship between the Judiciary and the legal profession.

Mr. Shah stated that the lecture was not to venture into rhetorical diatribe against judicial institutions as it was neither justified nor useful. Mr. Shah said his concerns emanated from his belief that existing systems were not at all threatening and they threatened the very legitimacy of the Judiciary.

He said that to restore public confidence in the judicial institution, the Judiciary should pay attention to the growing demands for judicial accountability. There was also an extraordinary emphasis on the need  to combat corruption. It would no longer be cautious to pretend as though the judicial institution was unreceptive to the menace of corruption.

News reported by AR for News Vision online news paper 

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