Faced with a “natural deadline”, the Supreme Court on Thursday geared up for setting up a mechanism for appointment of ad-hoc judges in the high courts to reduce backlog of cases plaguing the judiciary.
The top court by referring to the “natural deadline” perhaps meant the retirement of Chief Justice SA Bobde on April 23. The top court asked group of senior lawyers representing different high courts to hold a virtual conference among themselves to deliberate and prepare within a week a road-map on four major points which could trigger the initiation of appointment process like-what could be percentage of pendency, how many ad-hoc judges could be appointed, how much could be the tenure of ad-hoc judges and what should the procedure. A special bench of Chief Justice SA Bobde and Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Surya Kant said, “We don’t have much time. We are facing a natural deadline. We cannot hear each and every point as it will take enough time. It will be better if you all should hold a virtual conference among yourselves and deliberate the issues and submit a report by next Wednesday”. It listed the matter for further hearing for April 15.