NEW DELHI: At a time when the Apex Court is reeling under the burden of over 65,000 pending cases, the position of the Chief Justice of India will also witness eight occupants with an average time of each judge at the post varying from 400 days to just 74 days. An analysis of the future CJIs based on their seniority (and date of retirement) reveals that no judge would be able to hold the post for beyond a year-and-a-half.
Such short tenure of the judges in the top court that is fighting pendency of over three crore cases not just hampers the chances of clearing backlog, but also reduces the chances for any CJI to implement new changes and policies to improve the present system. To improve the situation, the Law Commission of India has suggested that Chief Justice of India should have a minimum tenure of two years in the Apex Court. Law Commission Chairman and former Delhi High Court Chief Justice A P Shah had written a letter to the Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad stressing on the need of having a fixed tenure of two years for Apex Court judges.
The law commission has recommended that this step should be implemented from August 26, 2022, after the junior-most judge currently serving in the Supreme Court, and who is slated to be CJI, retires. Former Chief Justice of India P Sathasivam had also mooted for fixed tenures for CJI and had said after his retirement, “I had a tenure (as CJI) of nine months and eight days. There were many things that I wanted to do but couldn’t do due to short tenure. The CJI must have a fixed tenure like some important government functionaries like CBI Chief, IB Chief, Home Secretary to name a few.”
Justice N V Ramana, presently a judge in the Supreme Court, if appointed as the CJI will retire on August 26, 2022, followed with the appointment of Justice U U Lalit who will have tenure of just 74 days at the top post. Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde will have the longest tenure as CJI with 523 days between 2019 to mid- 2021, followed by Justice N V Ramana who will have tenure of 490 days. Even the enactment of National Judicial Commission will not hamper the process of appointment of CJIs as this post solely depends on seniority if the judge is considered fit to hold the office.
Tenure of CJIs in apex court in the past 5 years
Justice K G Balakrishnan: More than 3 years
Justice S H Kapadia: More than 2 years
Justice Altmas Kabir: Over 9 months
Justice P Sathasivam: Over 18 months
Justice R M Lodha: Nearly 5 months
Justice H L Dattu: Over a year