For decades, India’s judiciary has been shadowed by the tacit promise of cushy sinecures once judges hang up their robes. From plum gubernatorial posts to lucrative tribunal chairs and even Rajya Sabha seats, scores of retired judges have quietly stepped into government positions immediately after leaving the bench. This “post-retirement pipeline” has become an entrenched tradition; one that critics say egregiously compromises judicial integrity and erodes public trust.

In very honest terms, it turns impartial jurists into political job-seekers, blurring the line between the bench and the executive. The pattern is no anomaly of a few bad apples but a systemic practice spanning generations. And today, even India’s Chief Justice is warning that this gravy train must end.

Judiciary And Judges- From Temple of Justice to A Pipeline of Patronage!

In India, judges retire with a fixed age of 65 for the Supreme Court and 62 for High Courts; yet many breeze into attractive government roles the very next day. The Indian lawbooks explicitly allow retired judges to become chairpersons or members of various tribunals and commissions (such as human rights bodies, environmental tribunals, etc.), but there is no cooling-off requirement. As a result, commentators have documented a parade of immediate appointments as soon as judicial careers end.

For example, Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel stepped down from the Supreme Court on 6 July 2018, and that same day was appointed Chairperson of the National Green Tribunal.

Justice Ashok Bhushan retired on 4 July 2021 and by November 2021 was already chief of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal.

Justice Hemant Gupta left the Supreme Court in October 2022 and by December was named head of the New Delhi International Arbitration Centre (NDIAC).

Even Chief Justices of India are not exempt: Justice S. Abdul Nazeer retired on 4 January 2023 and by 12 February 2023 was Governor of Andhra Pradesh.

These rapid-fire appointments span political regimes. Under the previous Congress governments (UPA I and II), at least 14 retired judges took up posts. In the Modi years, the figure has been roughly a dozen in each term. Many of the patronage jobs are powerful or prestigious. They include constitutional posts like the Vice-President or Rajya Sabha MP (a nominated seat), as well as high-paying administrative roles.

The National Human Rights Commission, often chaired by a retired judge, is another magnet. Even honorary posts such as state governors usually meant as a non-partisan capstone have gone to former justices. In short, the rule appears to be: serve the government with a friendly bench, and you will be richly rewarded once you retire.

The timeline of appointments is telling. Judges routinely land these roles within weeks or months of retirement.

Notable examples include former Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, who left office on 17 November 2019 and was nominated to the Rajya Sabha just four months later.

Justice Adarsh Goel’s case was even more immediate, appointed NGT chair within hours of retirement.

Justice A. K. Bhushan (Ashok Bhushan’s father) was made Human Rights Commission chief almost immediately after office.

Justice Ranjan Gogoi’s successor Justice S. Abdul Nazeer was made a state governor within 40 days.

Even older cases fit the pattern: Justice S. Fazal Ali became Governor of Odisha within a year of retiring in 1951. Post-retirement perks have flowed back to the earliest eras of the Republic.

These examples are not isolated quirks but a clear pattern. In recent years alone, roughly one in five Supreme Court judges has taken a government appointment after retiring. Out of 28 judges retiring from 2018 to 2023, six have been immediately posted to statutory positions by the executive. The bar has burgeoned: tribunals like the NCLT/NRLC, commissions on human rights, environment, and even quasi-judicial bodies routinely reserve top slots for ex-judges. The effect is a revolving door: judges can both shape policies on the bench and later reap rewards for doing so.

Controversial Post-Retirement Appointments

The practice has produced numerous flashpoints in public life. Critics point to high-profile cases where the question of bias seems unavoidable. In 2020, former CJI Ranjan Gogoi accepted a Rajya Sabha nomination in March, four months after presiding over a five-judge bench that decided the disputed Babri Masjid–Ram Janmabhoomi title suit and upheld the government’s policies in other sensitive cases. His nomination “came four months after his retirement”, and unsurprisingly provoked outcry.

Congress leader Randeep Surjewala remarked on social media that judicial trust was crumbling, and even BJP MP Piyush Goyal (quoting Arun Jaitley) criticized it as evidence that “the desire of a post-retirement job influences pre-retirement judgments”. T. R. Raghunandan, a respected legal scholar, called Gogoi’s move “a serious issue for institutional integrity.”

Similarly, Justice S. Abdul Nazeer, part of the 2019 Ayodhya bench, was appointed Governor of Andhra Pradesh less than two months after retiring.

Justice P. Sathasivam, who was Chief Justice of India in 2014, became Governor of Kerala in September that year, just months after retirement. Each such appointment sends ripples through legal circles and among the public.

When Justice Fathima Beevi, the first female Supreme Court judge, was made Governor of Tamil Nadu five years after retiring (in 1997), it too raised eyebrows. In modern times, the backlash has only grown stronger: the Gogoi and Nazeer cases led to fiery debates in Parliament and media about “quid pro quo” arrangements that could “cause incalculable damage to the reputation of the judiciary”.

Lower-profile judges have also joined the gravy train.

Justice Adarsh Goel was an especially conspicuous case: hours after his mandatory retirement in July 2018, the government announced him as Chair of the National Green Tribunal. That NGT had been understaffed for a year made the timing even more telling.

Justice Ashok Bhushan, who retired in July 2021, moved to head the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal four months later.

Justice Hemant Gupta was tapped for the NDIAC barely two months post-retirement (retired October 2022, appointed December 2022). And former High Court Chief Justices regularly land central posts too.

The longevity of this practice is striking. For example, Justice Baharul Islam of the Supreme Court retired in January 1983 and was nominated to the Rajya Sabha a few months later, a move critics said was “a reward for clearing” a Bihar minister in a corruption case.

Justice Ranganath Misra stepped down as CJI in 1991 and by 1993 was appointed chairman of the National Human Rights Commission; he later became a Rajya Sabha MP in 1998.

Justice Mohammad Hidayatullah, after 9 years out of the chief justice chair, became Vice-President of India (1979–84). Even when the time gap is long, appointments to high office by the executive feed a similar narrative of reward. The sheer roll-call of such names, Fazal Ali, P. Sathasivam, S. Abdul Nazeer, Fathima Beevi, Ranjan Gogoi, and many others, makes a damning catalog.

Astonishingly, there is no legal ban on these post-retirement placements. Parliament and the Supreme Court have left the door wide open. In fact, the Supreme Court itself in 2023 refused a public interest plea demanding any cooling-off period before retired judges take government posts. That bench, led by Justice Sanjay Kaul, held that “it is not for the apex court to either stop a retired judge from accepting a post-retirement offer or to direct Parliament to frame a specific law”. (The government had made plain it would not legislate on the issue.) Even though the 14th Law Commission (as far back as the 1950s) had recommended forbidding post-retirement executive jobs for judges, that recommendation remains ignored.

Warnings from the Top

The implications of this patronage have not escaped the notice of even the highest judicial authorities. Chief Justice B.R. Gavai, in office since May 2025, has publicly lambasted the practice. Speaking at an international conference, CJI Gavai warned unambiguously that judges jumping into politics or government work right after retirement create a “conflict of interest” and “invite significant ethical concerns”. He admonished that taking up any government role “immediately after retirement…undermines the public’s trust in the judiciary’s integrity”. Such post-retirement fawning, Gavai said, “creates a perception that judicial decisions were influenced by the prospect of future government appointments”. In plain terms, if judges appear to be angling for post-retirement rewards, each judgment they deliver will be viewed with suspicion.

Gavai went further to lead by example. Barely weeks into his tenure, he vowed he would refuse any political posting after retirement. He even disclosed that he and many colleagues had “publicly pledged not to accept any post-retirement roles or positions from the government”. Similarly, retired Chief Justices like S.A. Bobde and others have made such pledges. But these personal vows, though noble, can’t erode decades of history or hush the people’s skepticism. Crucially, Gavai’s speech puts the judiciary itself on record: the top judge of India now says bluntly that the timing of these appointments is corrosive to legitimacy.

Other senior voices, not from the bench, have also bluntly condemned the habit. Arun Jaitley, then Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, famously declared in 2013 that “almost every judge wants a job after retirement. If we don’t arrange it, they’ll do it themselves,” and warned that this “influences pre-retirement decisions”.

Former Law Minister Kapil Sibal echoed Jaitley’s warning by tweeting in reaction to a quick post-retirement appointment; “Remember what my friend Jaitley said: pre-retirement judges are influenced by the desire for a post-retirement job”. Even MPs from the ruling party have joined the chorus: BJP’s Piyush Goyal retweeted Jaitley’s 2013 remark, decrying that India has “gone too far in creating post-retirement avenues for judges”. In plain language, Parliament’s own members have said this practice is a direct threat to judicial independence.

Even among lawyers and bar associations, concern has been vocal. A Bombay Lawyers Association filed a PIL seeking a mandatory cooling-off period for retired judges, lamenting that without it, appointments “could have ramifications for an independent judiciary”. The Court declined to intervene, but the plea itself shows how many see the issue as an erosion of judicial impartiality. Across legal blogs and independent analyses, commentators have coined stark terms, a “self-employment scheme” for judges, an “employment guarantee” for the bench, and a “pay-for-favor” pipeline, to capture the cynical reality.

Isn’t There An The Erosion Of Public Trust?

The consequence of this long-standing pattern is now unmistakable: a deeply shaken public confidence in the judiciary’s disinterestedness. When judges retire with the expectation of cushy sinecures, every verdict, especially in cases touching political or economic power, is viewed through a prism of suspicion. That is exactly what CJI Gavai cautioned against: “the perception that judicial decisions were influenced by the prospect of future government appointments”. In a democracy, the judiciary’s authority rests not just on actual impartiality but on the appearance of probity. By gifting coveted posts to freshly-minted retireed judicial folks, the system broadcasts that judicial robes may be traded for political blankets.

The public has noticed. Polls and media commentary point to declining faith in the courts’ moral authority. Every high-profile appointment after retirement fuels murmurings of quid pro quo. For instance, Justice Gogoi’s nomination to the Rajya Sabha prompted Opposition MPs to tweet bluntly “Is it quid pro quo?” and asked how the public can “have faith in the independence of judges”. Yashwant Sinha warned that Gogoi’s acceptance of the RS seat would “cause incalculable damage to the reputation of the judiciary”. This is not idle worry; these are the words of long-time policymakers and legal luminaries who understand the institutions at stake.

The effect is a chilling feedback loop. If ordinary citizens believe judges reward the powerful in hopes of government favor, they stop believing in equal justice. They may start seeing verdicts as bought or traded. The social contract of “law above all” frays when one of the two co-equal branches of government so overtly feeds into the other’s reward system. Even if most judges ultimately decide cases on the merits, the persistent pattern of post-retirement perks makes the principle that “justice must be seen to be done” a hollow mantra. As one legal pundit put it, for the Indian judiciary this is “a threat to the independence of the judiciary” akin to any other form of corruption.

At The End: What Is The Cost of Compromise?

The bleak truth is that this gravy train has been running “since ages”, as critics say, and its effect has been to mortally wound the judiciary’s moral authority. Hard-nosed facts bear this out. Time and again, judges who handed down landmark rulings have shortly thereafter received plum government assignments. Whether it’s a Supreme Court Chief Justice becoming a Rajya Sabha member, or a bench-watcher moving into a governor’s Raj Bhavan, the optics are devastating. Even the current head of the judiciary warns these moves “invite public scrutiny”, but recognition of the problem has not halted the practice.

Today, India’s highest court faces the grim legacy of these entanglements. The virtuous ideal of impartial justice is at odds with the sordid reality of political patronage. The judiciary’s “credibility and independence”, to quote Chief Justice Gavai, have been compromised as retired judges line up at the executive trough. Each appointment chips away at the idea that India’s judges operate free of ulterior motives. With every new nomination, the common man’s faith in the legal system erodes a little more.

This is the damning indictment of post-retirement appointments: they turn human judges, who are fallible and ambitious like the rest of us, into politicians in waiting. In the end, the only losers are citizens themselves.

A judiciary tainted by quid pro quo can no longer serve as the nation’s honest broker. And when the courts lose moral authority, democracy itself suffers, for what is justice if not beyond reproach?