Centre clears 5 judges after prod from SC

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL ASSURED A SUPREME COURT BENCH THAT THE APPOINTMENTS TO THE APEX COURT MAY COME ‘WITHIN 2-3 DAYS’

NEW DELHI : The Union government cleared five new judges for the Supreme Court, hours after it assured a top court bench that the appointments will happen “very soon”, according to people aware of the matter who said a formal notification was likely to be issued late on Friday night or over the weekend.

Those elevated to the Supreme Court are justices Pankaj Mithal (Rajasthan high court chief justice), Sanjay Karol (Patna high court chief justice), PV Sanjay Kumar (Manipur high court chief justice), Ahsanuddin Amanullah (Patna high court judge), and Manoj Misra (Allahabad high court judge).

The new judges are expected to be sworn in on Monday by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, the people cited above added. With their appointments, the top court will have 32 out of its sanctioned strength of 34 judges.

While these five names were pending with the government since December 13, the collegium made the recommendation for the remaining two vacancies as well last week.

The development came on the same day that attorney general (AG) R Venkataramani gave an assurance to the bench headed by justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul that the appointments to the apex court may come “within 2-3 days”, even as he added that it would not be proper to put down the timeline for making these appointments in the judicial order.

Responding to him, the bench

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday sought the Centre’s response on two petitions challenging the ban on the circulation of links pertaining to a BBC documentary, India: The Modi Question, and directed the government to produce the original records with regard to a January 20 directive to social media platforms to take down the two-part series, or tweets and posts containing links to it. Dealing with two petitions, the court said, “The respondent will also produce the original record before the next date of hearing.”