Overview
- Officials say none of the 25 high courts has proposed retired judges for ad-hoc roles, so the law ministry has received no files.
- A Jan. 30, 2025 Supreme Court order allowed ad-hoc appointments of up to 10% of each court’s sanctioned strength to address over 1.8 million pending criminal cases.
- Under the process, high court collegiums must send names to the Department of Justice for vetting before the Supreme Court Collegium considers them and the government seeks presidential assent.
- The court directed ad-hoc judges to sit on benches led by sitting judges to hear criminal appeals.
- Earlier restrictions from an April 2021 ruling were eased, including keeping the 80% sanctioned-strength condition in abeyance, yet the mechanism remains unused.