Judicial Pay commission report is to be submitted in time.

More than 16,000 trial court judges battling to ease the pressure of over 2.6 crore pending cases in a gloomy atmosphere - low pay and inadequate infrastructure -- have something to cheer about. For the new judicial pay commission appointed by the Supreme Court in April this year will submit its recommendations in a month's time.
Given the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations for central government babus, a proportionate increase in salaries of judicial officers, who had demanded a three-fold increase, is on the cards.

But, Justice E Padmanabhan heading the new judicial pay commission, the second one after the first one under Justice Jagannath Shetty, said there would be no delay on his part in meeting the deadline for submitting the recommendations. The Supreme Court had posted the hearing on the matter concerning the pay of subordinate court judges for July 28.

"I am at present doing a day-to-day hearing of concerned parties. The hearing would be complete in another 10 days. All that I can say at present is that I will not seek extension of time for submission of the report recommending new pay-scales for the subordinate court judges," Justice Padmanabhan told TOI from Chennai.

The petition seeking increase in the salary of the trial court judges was filed in the Supreme Court shortly after the Chief Justice of India and judges of the SC and the high courts got a three-fold salary hike earlier this year.

The logic for seeking appointment of a new pay commission was that the first judicial pay commission headed by Justice Shetty had said that whenever there was an upward revision of salaries of HC judges, the salaries of lower court judges should also be proportionately revised.

After getting respectable salaries for judges in the higher judiciary and himself, CJI K G Balakrishnan had expressed concern over the low salaries of the lower court judges. "Their monthly take home is even lower than their counterparts in the executive," he had said.

The first NJPC headed by Justice Jagannatha Shetty was constituted on March 21, 1996, and it gave its recommendations in November 1999. It had recommended a salary hike that entitled a civil judge (junior division) a starting salary of Rs 11,775, civil judge (senior division) Rs 15,200, District Judge (entry level) Rs 20,800 and District Judge (super time scale) Rs 23,850.

But, this was recommended keeping in view the then salaries of the HC judges which was fixed at Rs 26,000 and that of HC CJ Rs 30,000, SC judges Rs 30,000 and CJI Rs 33,000.

The salary structure for the higher judiciary changed earlier this year with the government agreeing to revise the salary of an HC judge to Rs 80,000, HC CJ Rs 90,000, SC judges Rs 90,000 and CJI Rs 1 lakh.
Source : Times of India.