Govt objects to collegium’s move to scrap evaluation of judgments

NEWDELHI: The Union law ministry has objected to the Supreme Court collegium’s move to scrap the mechanism for evaluating judgments of additional judges of high courts while recommending their names for promotion as permanent judges.

The SC collegium is a body of the country’s top five judges headed by the Chief Justice of India that appoints judges. High court judges are appointed after their names are recommended by similar bodies in the country’s 24 high courts to the SC collegium.

Additional judges – appointed for an initial period of two years – were being evaluated for the judgments they delivered before being made permanent judges since 2010. On October 31, that year, then CJI Justice SH Kapadia had written to high court chief justices asking them to set up judgment evaluation committees in every high court.

The committees, comprised of senior judges, assessed additional judges on the judgments they had delivered. In March this year, then CJI JS Khehar wrote to the HC chief justices saying the SC collegium had decided that the practice “needs to be discontin- ued”, sources said. The CJI’S letter was sent to the law ministry in April.

Last month, the ministry wrote back to the collegium asking it to “re-examine” its decision to scrap the lone parameter for evaluating additional judges before elevating them, sources said.

The communication to the Chief Justice of India was made during the tenure of the previous justice department secretary Snehlata Srivastava, who retired on September 30. When HT tried to contact her on Saturday, she texted she had already retired.