Six months after proposals, only 6 out of 16 names to HC cleared
WHILE THE GOVT CLEARED ALL FOUR NAMES RECOMMENDED BY THE COLLEGIUM FOR APPOINTMENTS TO THE KERALA HC, IT HAS APPROVED ONLY TWO OF SIX NAMES IN CASE OF THE DELHI HC
DELHI: Days after the Supreme Court urged the Centre to frame a timeline for appointing judges to high courts and the apex court upon receiving recommendations of the collegium, the government has cleared only six of 16 names for high courts despite sitting on the proposals for over six months.
The government has cleared appointments of two judges in the Delhi high court and four in the Kerala high court while choosing not to clear some other names that have been pending for more than a year now, HT has learnt through people familiar with the matter.
While the government cleared all four names recommended by the collegium for appointments to the Kerala high court, it has approved only two of six names in case of the Delhi high court. The notifications for the appointment of these six judges are expected to be issued on Monday.
The SC collegium comprises the Chief Justice of India and the two most senior judges of the apex court in matters of appointment and transfer of high court judges.
The government had 16 names pending approval after the collelawyers gium’s recommendation. Even as it decided to clear the names sent in August 2020, it did not take any decision on the five names for the Calcutta high court, pending since July 2019, and one name for the Jammu and Kashmir high court, pending since October 2019.
The law ministry did not respond to queries about these pending names till the time of going to press.
According to people in the know, the government has cleared the names of advocates Jasmeet Singh and Amit Bansal as judges in the Delhi high court while four other names recommended by the collegium in August 2020 have been kept pending. The other four yet to be cleared for appointment are Tara Vitasta Ganju, Anish Dayal, Amit Sharma and Mini Pushkarna.
Of the total sanctioned strength of 60, Delhi high court currently has a vacancy of 31 judges which will come down to 29 once the notifications are issued.
The government has also chosen to segregate the names sent together by the collegium despite disapproval of this practice by justice RM Lodha, who as CJI in July 2014 had written a letter to Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, stating that the government should not adopt such “unilateral segregation” in the future.
Justice Lodha sent this missive after the NDA government segregated former solicitor general Gopal Subramanium from the panel of four names recommended for appointment as Supreme Court judges by the collegium.
All the four names for the Kerala high court have been cleared by the government. Principal sessions judges Kauser Edappagath of Ernakulam and K Babu of Thiruvananthapuram and lawyers Ziyad Rahman and Murali Purushothaman will now be appointed as judges in the Kerala high court.
These recommendations have also been cleared by the government after six months. Currently, there are 37 judges against the sanctioned strength of 47 in the Kerala high court.
Seven judges will retire this year. There are four other names pending for appointment to the Kerala high court with the Supreme Court collegium.
HT reported earlier this month that currently there are 188 names in contemplation for appointment as high court judges as against a staggering vacancy of 419 judges -more than a third of the total positions. Of the 188 names being considered, 112 are pending with the government, with the oldest recommendations for appointment going back to July 2019.
Hearing a petition on a related issue on January 27, the bench, which included CJI SA Bobde and justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Surya Kant, called it a “matter of great concern” that the collegium had not heard from the government for months.
The bench said a proposal will get stuck without knowing the reason and asked the government to consider laying down a timeline for the executive to clear appointments in the higher judiciary, with every stage of appointment marked by a definite time period.