Chief Justice DY Chandrachud on Saturday said judges should retire so that future generations can rework old legal principles to develop the society.

 CJI Chandrachud shared his view on the retirement age of judges at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in Delhi on Saturday.

 Chandrachud said that there is no retirement age for judges in the US Constitution. Whereas, in India, judges retire after a particular age. The CJI said that it is important that the judges must retire because it is too big a responsibility to impose on a human being in the context of his own infallibility that he should not retire from his office.

The CJI further said that we have followed the model where judges retire. But, as someone who has been in the system for 23 years as a judge, I have a different opinion. “Judges are human beings who are prone to making mistakes and society evolves,” he said. You should hand over this responsibility to the coming generations who will be able to point out the errors of the past and make changes in the legal principles for the development of the society

Explaining the reason for this, the CJI said that in the Indian context, giving such power to unelected judges to hold office for life is wisely not adopted by the Indian Constitution. At present, the retirement age of judges in India is 60 years in the lower courts, 62 years in the High Courts and 65 years in the Supreme Court.

A parliamentary committee had recommended a performance appraisal system to extend the tenure of judges of the Supreme Court and high courts beyond the existing retirement age. During the tenure of the UPA-2 government, a bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha to bring the retirement age of high court judges at par with that of the apex court, but it never came up for consideration and lapsed.