Pitiable: Supreme Court on meagre pension of retired high court judges

Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Wednesday lamented the meagre pension, ranging from Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000, being given to some retired high court judges and termed it "pitiable".

The apex court asked the authorities to have a "humane approach" instead of adopting a "legal approach".

A bench of Justices BR Gavai and KV Viswanathan was dealing with a batch of pleas raising the issue of different pension being payable to retired high court judges.

One of the key reasons was that the high court judges, who have been elevated from district judiciary, were covered under the New Pension Scheme.

While those, who have been elevated to the high court from the Bar, were the beneficiaries of the Old Pension Scheme leading to the mismatch in the pension payable to two sets of high court judges.

"You cannot have a legal approach in every matter. Sometimes, you need to have a humane approach," the apex court observed on Wednesday.

"It is pitiable," the bench said, noting some retired high court judges were getting pension between Rs 10,000 and Rs 15,000.

Attorney general R Venkataramani mentioned the matter before the bench and requested for a hearing in January, 2025.

Venkataramani said the government would try to resolve the issue.

"It is better you persuade them that our intervention should be avoided," the bench observed.

It said the matter would not be decided on individual cases and whatever the top court might lay down would be applicable to all the high court judges.

The bench posted the hearing on January 8, 2025.

While hearing a separate plea in March, the apex court said there cannot be any discrimination in computing the pensionary benefits of retired judges of high courts based on whether they were elevated from the bar or the district judiciary.

Pensionary benefits of a retired high court judge, who was elevated from the district judiciary, should be computed based on his or her last drawn salary as a high court judge, it had said.

During the hearing on one of the pleas in the matter in November, the top court expressed "shock" that some retired high court judges were getting a meagre pension ranging between Rs 6,000 and Rs 15,000.

The bench was hearing a petition filed by a retired high court judge who said he was receiving a pension of Rs 15,000.

The petitioner, who was elevated as a judge of the Allahabad High Court after serving as a judicial officer in the district court for 13 years, claimed the authorities had refused to consider his judicial service while computing the pension.

"If there are retired high court judges before us who are getting Rs 6,000 and Rs 15,000 as pension, it is shocking. How can that be?" the bench had remarked while hearing the plea.