The govt cleared six of 10 names recommended by the collegium after a delay. There is no communication on the status of the other four.
New Delhi: After sitting on the recommendations of the Supreme Court collegium for over three months, the Narendra Modi government last week cleared just one name, that of lawyer Indu Malhotra, while referring back for “reconsideration” the name of Justice K.M. Joseph.
However, in its 10 January recommendations, the collegium had also sent 10 names for appointment as chief justices of various high courts. The Centre has only acted upon a few of these names, and that too, after delays.
While union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has offered the government’s reasons for rejecting Joseph’s name — many of which, data shows, are questionable — the Centre has offered no explanation for why it did not act on the other recommendations with any urgency.
Here’s the status of the 10 other recommendations made on 10 January:
Justice Tarun Agrawala and Justice Abhilasha Kumari
Justice Agrawala was recommended as chief justice of the Meghalaya High Court, and Justice Kumari as chief justice of the Manipur HC. They were both appointed on 6 February, and retired less than a month later.
Justice Jyotirmay Bhattacharya and Justice Antony Dominic
Justice Bhattacharya was appointed the chief justice of the Calcutta High Court on 27 April, the same day Justice Dominic was made the chief justice of the Kerala High Court. They were appointed the heads of their parent high courts since they had less than one year left to retire. While Bhattacharya retires in September, Dominic retires later this month.
In both these cases, the Centre issued the warrants of appointment on 27 April, after sitting on the file for over three months.
The Memorandum of Procedure (MoP), which guides appointments in the higher judiciary, allows the elevation of a puisne judge as chief justice of his/her own high court if he/she has one year or less left before retirement.
Justice Ajay Rastogi and Justice Dinesh Maheshwari
In the case of two other judges – Justice Rastogi, originally from the Rajasthan HC, who was recommended for appointment as chief justice of the Tripura HC, and Justice Maheshwari, the chief justice of the Meghalaya HC, who was to be transferred to the Karnataka HC – the Centre issued the warrants on 6 February.
There was no explanation given for these delays, but all six names were eventually cleared.
Status unknown
What nobody knows is why the Modi government has been sitting on four other names recommended for appointment as chief justices of different HCs, including Delhi.
The Delhi High Court, one of the most important HCs in the country, has been without a full-time CJ for over one year now. The name of senior puisne judge of Calcutta High Court, Justice Aniruddha Bose, was recommended for appointment to this position. But the Centre has not processed the appointment.
There are indications that the government may ask the collegium to suo motu withdraw its recommendation and send another name.
The post of chief justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court is lying vacant since Justice M.A. Mir retired on 24 April 2017. The SC collegium recommended the name of Justice Surya Kant of the Punjab and Haryana HC. That appointment has also not been processed.
Nor has the appointment of senior Patna HC Justice Ajay Kumar Tripathi as chief justice of the Chhattisgarh High Court.
The final recommendation of the collegium was to transfer Chhattisgarh HC chief justice T.B. Radhakrishnan as the chief justice of Telangana & Andhra Pradesh High Court. The government has not offered any reason for not doing so.