SC prescribes outer time limit for appointment of HC judges

The Supreme Court on Tuesday prescribed a judicially mandated timeline for the Union government to make appointment of judges in the high courts, underscoring that “promptness in this process [is] to facilitate the larger cause of dispensation of timely justice”.

The court, for the first time, indicated an outer time limit within which the Centre is expected to process the names for appointments of the high court judges, besides notifying appointments once the names are reiterated by its collegium.

While the existing Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) that guides judicial appointments has not suggested any period within which the Centre is supposed to forward the recommendations to the Supreme Court collegium, a bench, headed by Chief Justice of India SA Bobde, set down 18 weeks to complete this process.

“The High Courts are in a crisis situation,” said the bench as it regretted that the high courts have a shortage of around 40% judges. The bench held that after high courts send their recommendations to the Union law ministry, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) should not take more than eight weeks to give its inputs.

After receiving the inputs from the IB and the state government concerned, the Centre should process these names within eight to 12 weeks, and send them to the collegium.

As laid down in the MoP, the Supreme Court collegium, led by the CJI, will send its final recommendations in four weeks, and these recommendations will preferably be put up before the Prime Minister, who will advise the President in the matter of appointment.

The court has said that in case the government has any reservation regarding certain recommendations, those names may be sent back to the SC collegium with specific reasons.

IN 18 WEEKS, THE CENTRAL GOVT IS EXPECTED TO PROCESS THE NAMES FOR APPOINTMENTS OF HC JUDGES