Old questions haunt new collegium over SC picks

Former justices call for transparency as two HC judges elevated

NEW DELHI: The Union government on Wednesday cleared the names of two judges for elevation to the Supreme Court even as the higher judiciary plunged deeper into controversy with former members of the apex court’s collegium questioning its decisions and asking for more transparency in the selection process.

The five-member body is under scrutiny after it emerged that it reversed a December decision to elevate two high court chief justices to the apex court and instead picked two others in January, in the process superseding several other judges on the all-India seniority list of high court judges.

The elevation of the two justices, Dinesh Maheshwari and Sanjiv Khanna, was cleared by the government in separate orders. Hours before that, the Bar Council of India and the Delhi Bar Council issued strongly worded statements suggesting the collegium’s recommendations went against the “seniority principle”.

The row comes a year after the four senior-most Supreme Court judges after the Chief Justice of India (CJI) held an unprece- dented press conference where they disagreed with then-CJI Dipak Misra’s style of functioning, said he was assigning important cases to junior judges, and suggested a “consultation-led process” among the top five judges and a set of guidelines for deciding on the case roster and work allocation.

Three of those judges — justices J Chelameswar, Kurian Joseph and Madan Lokur — have retired since, as has Misra. The fourth, justice Ranjan Gogoi, is the present CJI. On December 12, the collegium comprising justices Gogoi, Lokur, AK Sikri, SA Bobde and NV Ramana decided to elevate justice Pradeep Nandrajog, chief justice of the Rajasthan high court, and justice Rajendra Menon, chief justice of the Delhi high court. On January 10, a reconstituted collegium, with justice Arun Mishra replacing retired justice Lokur, instead picked Karnataka high court chief justice Maheshwari and justice Khanna of the Delhi HC.

As controversy brewed over the decision, led by former Delhi HC judge Kailash Gambhir who wrote a letter to the President on Tuesday describing the reversal as a “black day”, former chief justices of the Supreme Court said the goings-on were “a sad moment” for the judiciary.