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SC panel again recommends appointment of son of judge who found Godhra train fire ‘accidental’

Advocate Amitesh Banerjee's father Justice U.C. Banerjee had headed a probe panel on the Godhra train fire in 2004 whose report was considered a setback for the then Modi-led Gujarat govt.

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New Delhi: The Supreme Court Collegium reiterated the name of advocate Amitesh Banerjee, son of former SC judge Justice U.C. Banerjee, for elevation as a judge of the Calcutta High Court.

Amitesh is among the nine names reiterated by the high-powered appointment panel, led by Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana, for elevation as judges in four HCs, overruling the government’s objections to them.

His father, Justice Banerjee, had headed the probe panel set up by the then UPA government in 2004 to rule out any foul play in the 2002 Sabarmati Express fire in Godhra, which triggered the violent communal riots in Gujarat.

The fire had led to the deaths 59 karsevaks returning from Ayodhya and several others were injured.

The panel’s report was seen as a setback to the Gujarat government, which was led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the time, because it contested the government version that the fire was deliberately planned to harm the travelling karsevaks. Instead, the report ruled the fire as accidental.

However, the findings were declared illegal by the Gujarat High Court, which quashed its conclusion and held the commission’s constitution “as a colourable exercise of power with malafide intention”.


Also read: Allahabad and Uttarakhand HCs flouted SC order on ‘coercive action’ over 300 times in 4 months


Appointments to high courts

The SC Collegium recommended a total of 68 names for elevation to 12 high courts, and of them, 44 are from the bar while 24 are from the judicial service.

Ten candidates are women lawyers and one of them belongs to the Scheduled Tribe. If cleared, she will be the first such appointment to be made to the higher judiciary.

As reported earlier by ThePrint, the central government had returned files of 14 names recommended by the SC collegium for five different High Courts.

Two of them were sent back a second time, disregarding the fact that they were reiterated by the collegium. According to the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP), the collegium’s reiteration over a name is binding on the government.

These recommendations were pending with the government for more than a year, in some instances for almost 24 months.

According to a resolution, uploaded on the top court’s website Friday night, four names were cleared for Calcutta High Court, including Amitesh, two for Jammu and Kashmir and one for Rajasthan and two for Karnataka.

While the list related to the Calcutta HC that was sent back had five names in it, the collegium has reiterated only four. The resolution does not make note of the collegium’s decision regarding the fifth name.

These five names were cleared by the SC collegium in July 2019. They were chosen out of nine that were recommended by the Calcutta HC collegium on 17 December 2018. The SC collegium had then picked up only five and remitted the others to the high court

One of the two names for Karnataka HC has been reiterated for a second time, indicating the firm approach being adopted by the collegium. This candidate was initially recommended in October 2019 and his name was reiterated in March this year.

The two names, including one of a woman lawyer, for Jammu and Kashmir HC were cleared for elevation by the state HC in March 2019.

However, the top court collegium had approved the woman advocate’s name only in October 2019 while the second one was forwarded in March this year, after the appointment panel received additional inputs sought by it regarding the advocate’s legal practice.

The lone name reiterated for Rajasthan High Court was among the two recommendations sent by the collegium in July 2019. While the government had notified the appointment of one in November 2019, it chose to send back the other.

The collegium is yet to take a decision on four names related to the Delhi High Court and one for Kerala.


Also read: Supreme Court’s 9 new judges — 3 women, 1 OBC, 1 SC and from 9 different states


 

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