Ad-hoc judges can be appointed to deal with criminal cases in HCs: Supreme Court

Supreme Court suggests ad-hoc judges for high courts to tackle criminal case backlog, citing alarming pendency statistics.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday (January 21, 2025) suggested the appointment of ad-hoc judges in high courts to deal with the huge pendency of criminal appeals.

A special bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justices B.R. Gavai and Surya Kant referred to the data on pendency of criminal cases in several high courts and said in Allahabad High Court alone there were 63,000 criminal appeals pending.

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The CJI said in the Jharkhand High court the figure stood at 13,000, and similarly 20,000, 21,000, 8,000 and 21,000 criminal cases were pending in high courts at Karnataka, Patna, Rajasthan and the Punjab and Haryana respectively.

The bench said it could partly modify the 2021 judgement to ensure ad-hoc judges were appointed to decide criminal appeals by division benches presided over by sitting high court judges.

The CJI said no ad-hoc judge should be appointed in a high court if it was functioning with 80% sanctioned strength of judges.

"We will have to deal only with the condition that the ad hoc judges will be sitting on the benches which are dealing with criminal cases with one sitting judge as the presiding judge… to that extent we require that modification,” the bench said and asked the attorney general R Venkataramani to assist it on January 28.