District
Court Judges Demand Separate Pay Commission – A three Judges bench sought
the Centre’s response to the petition which seeks to set up an independent pay
commission ‘the All India Judicial Commission’ to review the service conditions
of the lower judiciary.
The Supreme Court on Monday issued
notice to the Centre over a plea filed by the All India Judges’ Association
(AIJA) seeking a separate pay commission for lower court judges.
A three Judge bench comprising chief
justice H.L. Dattu, justices Shiva Kirti Singh and Amitava Roy sought the
Centre’s response to the petition which seeks to set up an independent pay
commission ‘the All India Judicial Commission’ to review the service conditions
of the lower judiciary, which includes pay scale, pension and retirement age.
“Issue direction to constitute All
India Judicial Commission to review the service conditions of the judicial
officers of subordinate judiciary in India including but not limited to pay
Scale, retirement age, pension and other emoluments of the subordinate
judiciary from time to time,” the plea said.
“The Supreme Court has ruled in All
India Judges Association vs Union of India that the service conditions of the
Judicial Officers should be laid down and reviewed from time to time by an
independent commission exclusively constituted for the purpose…,” it said.
“Though the periodic exercise of
constituting a Pay Commission for the executive in public service has been
undertaken by the Central/State Governments and pay scales are being reviewed,
no such mechanism has been put in place for the judicial services despite
specific directions by this Court to this effect,” the association said.
Any decision in this regard is set
to affect nearly 18,000 judges across district courts of the country, lawyers
for AIJA said.
Source: Business Standard
