NEW DELHI: Expressing concern over the short tenure of Judges elevated to the post of Chief Justice of India, the government is mooting a fixed tenure for the post. At present there is no fixed tenure and it is being proposed that for at least a year, it should be fixed.
Fixing the tenure of the CJI would help him in framing and implementing radical reforms and take broad policy decisions. Observing the trend since 1997, 17 Chief Justices of India have been appointed and of those, only three had tenure of more than two years. One former CJI Justice S Rajendra Babu had tenure of less than a month. Similarly, Chief Justice of High Courts in most cases are appointed for less than a two years.
“A short term tenure does not provide chief justice adequate time to implement any major reform or long-term decisions,” former Additional Solicitor General of India Biswajit Bhattacharya said, adding that the solution lies in increasing the retirement age of Supreme Court judges to 70.
Backing the proposal former Delhi High Court Chief Justice and former Law Commission of India Chairman A P Shah said, “I have also submitted a report to the Ministry of Law and Justice wherein I had recommended that the Chief Justice of India should get a fixed tenure of two years in case their tenure as CJI is less than two years.
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. So, that chances of other judges in succession does not get affected.”