NEW DELHI, Jan 5: The Government has not received any proposal from the Supreme Court Collegiums for appointment of Chief Justices in the nine High Courts which are functioning with acting Chief Justices, Minister of State for Law and Justice and Corporate Affairs PP Chaudhary informed the Rajya Sabha during the just concluded Winter session.
Replying to questions over the status of Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) for appointment of judges to the Supreme Court and the High Courts the Minister of State said as per the existing MoP, the process of appointment of Chief Justice of High Court must be initiated well in time by Chief Justice of India in consultation with Supreme Court Collegiums to ensure the completion at least one month prior to the date of anticipated vacancy.
However this norm could not be followed in wake of some unwarranted developments following proceeding against a judge of the Calcutta High Court, wherein Supreme Court in a suo moto contempt against the said judge, underlined the need to revisit the process of selection and appointment of judges to the Constitutional Courts.
Briefing the Upper House over the status of the MoP, Mr Chaudhary said,in accordance with the order of the Supreme Court of India in writ petition for improvement in the “Collegium System”, directed the Government to finalize the existing MoP by supplementing it in consultation with the Supreme Court Collegium.
The Government after due deliberations, proposed changes in the existing MoP and the draft MoP was sent to the Chief Justice of India in March 2016. The response of the Chief Justice of India thereon was received two months later, Mr Chaudhary said.
The MoS said the Government conveyed the need to make improvement on the draft MoP to the Secretary General of the Supreme Court in May last year. Three major High Courts of Delhi, Bombay and Calcutta are headed by acting Chief Justices Gita Mittal, V K Tahilramani and Jyotirmay Bhattacharya. Other HCs functioning with acting CJs are Telengana and Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala and Manipur.
By May this year, three more HCs Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and Haryana, and Tripura too would have vacancies in the Chief Justice post as incumbents in these HCs are set to retire in March, May and February respectively. This would take the number of HCs without a CJ to 12, which are 50% of total number of HCs. (UNI)
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