Collegium

appointmentasjudgeofahighcourt.similarly, in the case of pending names for elevation of district and sessions judges to high court benches, the collegium has gone by the maximum age cap of 58 and half years.

The age cap, incidentally, is one of the clauses in the draft MOP on which both the Supreme Court collegium and the Centre are on the same page.

As first reported by The Indian Express, the Supreme Court collegium, in its final meeting onmarch10ontheissueofmop,rejectedevery contentious clause that the government wantedincludedinthemop,includingtheone that would have granted the government power to reject any name for appointment as a judge of the high court for reasons of “national security”.

In his letter to the Centre on March 13, conveyingthecollegium’sunanimousviews, CJI Khehar had also said that these were the final views of the collegium in line with the judgment of the Supreme Court in the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) case.

“While deciding the names, the collegium seems to have followed a new rulebook — drawn by itself. In cases where the IB gave adverse inputs about the integrity of candidates, the collegium rejected the names. But in cases where the IB commented on the professional capability of the candidates, the SC collegium overlooked the inputs. The inference that can be drawn is that judges are better placed to know about the legal acumen of candidates than IB officers,” a source said.

Within days of sending back the “final” draftofthenewmoptothegovernment,thesc collegiumstartedtheprocessofclearingpending cases, first sending 43 names to the government, followed by another batch comprising about 45 names. The government has already started processing some of the names that were part of the first bunch.