Government Accepts 7 Out Of 9 Supreme Court Collegium Recommendations To Appoint Chief Justices To High Courts

The Lok Sabha has been informed that seven of the nine recommendations made by the Supreme Court collegium this year to appoint chief justices to nine high courts have been accepted while two names are under “various stages of processing”.

Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has stated that out of the nine, seven judges have been appointed as chief justices in the high courts of Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Meghalaya, Rajasthan and Telangana.

However, the Lok Sabha was also informed that two such proposals to appoint chief justices of Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh high courts are “under various stages of processing as per provisions of the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP)”.

Recently, the government had asked the collegium to reconsider the name of Justice Vikram Nath, who was recommended to be elevated as chief justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court.

After the development, Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi wrote back seeking reasons for the reconsideration.

Similarly, the government is yet to decide on elevating Justice Akil Kureshi as chief justice of the Madhya Pradesh high court.

In this connection, it may be recalled that on June 3, after Prasad took charge of the Union Law Ministry, he had asserted that neither he nor his ministry would be a “post office” on judicial appointments and that he would work as a stakeholder in consultation with the Supreme Court and high courts to expedite recruitment of judges.

He had also stated that the government is in a mood to “fast track” consultations with stakeholders to set up an all-India judicial service to recruit judges for lower courts.