The Supreme Court on Thursday raised the retirement
age of judicial officers of Madhya Pradesh from 60 to 61 years.
In an interim order, a bench comprising Chief
Justice B R Gavai and Justices Prasanna B Varale and K Vinod Chandran referred
to a similar decision taken by the Telangana High Court. It asked why judicial
officers should be denied the relief when the state government was willing to
do so.
It is needless to say that judicial officers as well
as other employees of the state government draw salaries from the same public
exchequer, the bench said, adding that the retirement age of other state
government employees is 62 years.
In any case there is a difference of one year
between the retirement age of high court judges and the district court judges, the
court said.
High court judges retire at the age of 62 and now
the age of superannuation of district court judges in Madhya Pradesh will be
61.
The bench posted the plea for final hearing after
four weeks.
Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing
for the Madhya Pradesh High Court, opposed the submissions seeking enhancement
of retirement age of district court judges.
On October 27, the top court had sought responses
from the Madhya Pradesh government and the high court registry on a plea
challenging the refusal to enhance the retirement age of judicial officers in
the state from 60 to 61 years.
On May 26, a bench headed by Chief Justice B R Gavai
had said there was no legal impediment in raising the retirement age to 61
years for judicial officers in Madhya Pradesh.