The issue of judicial appointments is set to take centre stage when the Supreme Court reopens on Monday. A PIl seeking judicial appointments to be made within set timeframes is listed on the reopening day of the Court before a bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra.

The issue acquires importance as the finalisation of Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) to appoint judges still remains a bone of contention between the Government and judiciary.

It was in December 2015 that the Supreme Court allowed the Centre to revise the MoP by fixing eligibility criteria for appointing judges of the constitutional courts.

The judgment by a five-judge Constitution Bench permitted the Centre to introduce a Secretariat for collecting information about the shortlisted names and a mechanism to address complaints against the potential candidates.

But with time, the revision of MoP has got stuck with the collegium yet not finalising the changes introduced by the Centre. Ruing this fact, the PIl filed by Madras Bar Association stated that the only solution to the problem is to fix timelines for each stage provided in the MoP in order to avoid inordinate delays in the process either by the executive or the judiciary. This involves fixed time limits for selection of names, recommendation by the collegium, consideration by the Centre, returning of recommendation, reiteration by the collegium, and reconsideration of recommendation. 

The petition pointed out that currently there is a huge backlog of judicial vacancies both in High Courts and Supreme Court and any further delay will result in a grave situation as already High Court judges are getting overburdened with cases. Such a situation violates right to life, right to fair trial and equal opportunity to citizens protected under Articles 21 and 14.

Standing Committee of Parliament on Personnel, Public Grievances, law and Justice in its report on December 6, 2016 had pointed out that in the absence of timelines for filling up judicial vacancies there was an urgent need to address the issue by introducing such timelines in the MoP.

This situation has been exploited both by the judiciary and the executive from time to time.

In March 2018, a bench of the Supreme Court led by Justice Adarsh K Goel commented that despite the December 2015 decision, nothing seems to have moved forward in this direction. Both the judiciary and executive are yet to come to a consensus on the draft MoP.

Recently, Union law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad stated that discussions between the judiciary and executive were still on.