Attorney General KK Venugopal has been a strong advocate of raising the retirement of judges as he feels 65 years is too early an age for anyone to retire. Serving as India’s AG at the age of 90, no one else can speak so authoritatively as Venugopal on this issue. He points out that when advocates appear in the courts and argue effectively at the age of 70-75, there is no reason why judges, or anyone for that matter, cannot perform as effectively. Venugopal got his biggest backer the other day when Chief Justice of India M V Ramana said 65 years is not the age for anyone to retire. High court judges retire even three years earlier. He said this during an online exchange with US Supreme Court judge Stephen Breyer in a conversation moderated by William Treaner, Dean and executive vice president of Georgetown University Law Centre. US judges are appointed for life and leave office only of their own volition.
Calls for raising the retirement age of judges have been coming up from time to time on the ground that by retiring early, the judiciary is robbed of valuable expertise and insights judges have honed through their tenures. When they retire, there are many more years of wisdom and jurisprudence ahead of them, which get wasted. On the other hand, there is also a section of the judiciary that feels that the old should make way for the young as they will bring freshness in the spirit of inquiry and fullness in information, which the old generation does not have access to. Also, they feel that the judges deserve well-earned rest as they have been overstretched throughout their juristic career and therefore need to enjoy a retired life for fulfillment. The most coercive argument in favour of ‘on-time’ retirement is the need to create openings for the newcomers. This is more relevant in the case of government employees, who retire at the age of 60, as there is a persistent demand for the lower retirement age to allow the large army of unemployed in the country. In some states like Kerala, the retirement age is 56 which, given the relatively high index of the state’s health and wellness as well as life expectancy, must be considered the prime of their lives.
There has been much talk about the possibility of the central government lowering the retirement age from 60 at present to even 50 to create more employment for educated youth. But this has so far been denied by the government, saying such a proposal is not being considered at the level of the government. The argument in favour of a lower retirement age as a means to address unemployment is just as hollow as anything advanced to advocate a lower retirement age. This is no effective way to address unemployment as employment in government service constitutes only a fraction of the country’s unemployment problem. For instance, the central government accounts for only 8.5 percent of the organised workforce in the country. Moreover, the central government’s share in organised sector employment has gradually decreased over the years. In 2012, the central government employed 8.5 percent of the organised workforce, indicating a decline of about 4 percent from the level of 12.4 percent in 1994.
