BANGALORE, Nov 23: Over 10,000 district and lower court judges (subordinate judges), throughout the country are a discontented lot after the Fifth Pay Commission implementation resulted in the court staff drawing a higher salary than that of the judges in some places.

The First National Judicial Commission, constituted in March 1996 to examine the structure of emoluments and conditions of services of judicial officers in the States and Union Territories, for its part, was incapable of awarding interim relief to the judges since the terms of reference of the commission do not extend the necessary powers to the Commission.

The commission, comprising former Supreme Court Judge K Jagannatha Shetty as Chairman, Delhi High Court judge P K Bhari and Karnataka High court judge A B Murgod, had sent a questionnaire to all the High Courts in India and Judicial Officers' Associations. It is however still awaiting the response of 13 High Courts before it can recommend the new salary structure for subordinate judges. Meanwhile, the Fifth Pay Commission of the Central Government brought about a disparity in the salary drawn by the court staff and the judges, as the pay scales of judicial officers was not considered by the Fifth Pay Commission.

The Commission had written to the Law Ministry of the Central Government to amend the terms of reference, empowering the Commission to award interim relief to the judicial officers. However, the Law Ministry rejected that request.

Meanwhile, on September 29 this year, in a judgment in a case filed by the All India Judges' Association, the Supreme Court observed that the Government would take the necessary steps to ensure that the commission did not feel hindered while making interim recommendations.

The Supreme Court also observed that interim recommendations may be desirable on account of several factors to remove the anomalies likely to arise because of certain other decisions taken by the Government.

Though the Central Government gave the required assurance to the court, the orders amending the terms of reference are yet to reach the commission.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.