Many unfinished cases with SC judges, raise retirement age: AG

Taking a stand on his appeal to the Centre regarding a raise in the retirement age of Supreme Court judges from existing 65 to 68, Attorney General of India KK Venugopal on Tuesday said that many of the judges of the apex court have unfinished cases in their hands which are of "great importance to the nation."

"The reason (behind raise in the retirement age) is that by the time they (judges) come to Supreme Court they will like to have a lot of experience by the time they start presiding over a bench so that their creativity can be shown. (However) they would be able to only do that at the fag end," the Attorney General told ANI.

"I have found that many of them (Supreme Court judges) are having unfinished cases which are of great importance to the nation. That's why we have asked this," he added.

Last week, at Justice A K Goel's farewell function, KK Venugopal urged the central government to raise the retirement age of the Supreme Court judges.

He justified his point by saying that he knew Justice Goel could not accomplish many of his innovative plans and in the past four to five months he was "going at a great speed" and still managed to deliver several landmark judgments.

"A judge takes time to evolve and by the time he or she is in a position to put innovative thoughts to practice, comes the retirement age. This could have been avoided if the age of retirement was not 62 for High court judge and 65 for Supreme Court judges," the Attorney General said.

"It is my sincere hope that the Government of India will look into this issue and raise it to say, 65 for the judge of High Court and 68 for judges of Supreme Court. That will be in the interest of the justice delivery system," he added.