New Delhi: The Union Cabinet in its meeting on Friday gave its approval to promulgate an ordinance to increase the salaries of judges of the Supreme Court and the High Courts to give immediate effect to the hike proposed in the Bill introduced in the Lok Sabha on December 22, 2008.

The government decided to take the ordinance route since the High Court and Supreme Court Judges (Salaries and Conditions of Service) Amendment Bill, 2008, could not be passed in the Parliament session that ended on December 23, 2008.

The revised salary of the Chief Justice of India would be Rs.1 lakh per month, plus Dearness Allowance and Rs.90,000 per month, plus DA, for judges of the apex court and Chief Justices of High Courts. Judges of High Courts would draw a monthly salary of Rs.80,000, plus DA. Pension of judges would also be correspondingly revised.

The statement of objects and reasons in the Amendment Bill had stated “the need to increase the salaries, allowances and pension of the judges of the Supreme Court and the High Courts has been necessitated because of the increase in the salaries, allowances and pensions of Central Government employees on acceptance of the recommendations of the Sixth Central Pay Commission by the government.”

The revision will be effective from January 1, 2006. Forty per cent of the arrears of salary will be given in the current financial year and the balance in the next financial year.

The government has also decided to double the existing limit of both sumptuary allowance and furnishing allowance for all the Supreme Court and High Court judges. This will be effective from September 1, 2008.

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