AG bats for increasing retirement age, salaries of judges

Attorney General K K Venugopal on Monday favoured increasing the retirement age of judges of the Supreme Court and high courts from 65 and 62 years respectively.

He also said that the salaries offered to judges are far below than an average lawyer would earn, and they should be raised by 2-3 times.

Speaking at the farewell programme of outgoing Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, the law officer said that so far as judges are concerned, whether retired, they should not be allowed "to vegetate" and it is not easy to get good judges.

"Hope that we will have Chief Justice Dipak Misra with us for the long future to come. I remember making the same statement a little while back when some other judge retired and I don't know whether it has come true or not," he added.

Venugopal also disagreed with the view that post- retirement, judges should not take up the job at tribunals or arbitration, saying that "you cannot allow all the talent to be wasted".

Praising Justice Misra for delivering "record" judgements in last few months and also for the topics he dealt with, the attorney general said: "Time after time he (CJI) had to deal with gender justice and again and again he has decided in favour of women and therefore so far as he is concerned he has been labelled by the newspapers as the 'gender warrior'."