Prasad rubbishes speculation that Centre was planning to raise retirement age of SC judges from 65 to 67 and 62 to 64 years for HC judges.
New Delhi: The BJP-led Centre Wednesday denied media reports which suggested that the government was considering a constitutional amendment to increase the retirement age of judges in the higher judiciary.
Asked about the speculation, law minister Ravi Shakar Prasad said, “No, with a capital N.”
A report on CNN-News18 earlier Wednesday quoted top sources saying the Narendra Modi government was planning to raise the retirement age of Supreme Court judges from 65 to 67 while that of high court judges was being increased to 64 from 62 years.
The report also said the government “may cite the massive shortage of judges in higher judiciary to bring about this change”. It said the government was mulling a new bill to this effect in the ongoing monsoon session of Parliament.
In 2010, the then UPA government had introduced a constitutional amendment in Parliament to increase the retirement age of high court judges from 62 to 65 years. However, the bill lapsed after the dissolution of the Lok Sabha in 2014.
Earlier this year, the parliamentary standing committee on law, justice and personnel had asked the Centre to increase the retirement age of Supreme Court and high court judges to tide over the shortage of judges in the higher judiciary.
It had recommended that the retirement age of SC judges be raised to 67 years from 65 and that of HC judges to 65 from 62.
This, the parliamentary standing committee, had said would also help reduce pendency of cases.
In March, responding to a question in the Rajya Sabha, minister of state for law P.P. Chaudhary had said no such proposal for extension of retirement age of judges was under consideration.