An analysis of Supreme Court judges who have retired since 1999 reveals that at least 71 per cent took up some sort of assignment after demitting office. New Delhi: “Competitive impropriety”, “wrong precedent”, “improper shift” — the nomination of Justice Ranjan Gogoi to the Rajya Sabha in March this year, just four months after he retired as Chief Justice of India, raised several eyebrows. As a judge, Gogoi had presided over benches that handled several important cases, including the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute and the review petitions filed to seek an investigation into India’s purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France. Gogoi’s appointment, however, is not the lone instance of Supreme Court judges taking up other jobs or assignments after retirement. An analysis of Supreme Court judges who have retired since 1999 — 103 in total (one of them, Justice M. Srinivasan, 63, passed away while in office, in February 2000) — reveals that at least 71 per cent (73 out of 103) took up some sort of assignment after demitting office. These assignments included appointments to tribunals, human rights commissions, government-appointed ad hoc commissions, court-appointed committees, water tribunals, and as lokayuktas or state-level anti-corruption officials. As many as 63 per cent (65 out of 103) took up an assignment within three years of retiring, with some assuming multiple positions one after the other. For this report, ThePrint has only considered the first post-retirement assignment taken up by these judges. The first post-retirement assignment of at least 60 per cent (62 out of 103) of the judges involved direct appointment by the government, or the government having a say in appointments.