Justice Gita Mittal was on Saturday appointed as the Chief Justice of the Jammu & Kashmir High Court, becoming the first woman judge in the 90-year-old history of the High Court to head it. On Friday, Justice Sindhu Sharma had become the first woman judge of that court.
A new record was set in the Supreme Court too with the appointment of Madras High Court Chief Justice Indira Banerjee as judge of the Supreme Court. Along with her, the Centre appointed Justice KM Joseph (currently Chief Justice of Uttarakhand High Court) and Justice Vineet Saran (currently Chief Justice of Orissa High Court) as judges of the Supreme Court.
With her elevation, the number of women judges in Supreme Court will rise to three. In the history of the apex court, this is the first time that three women judges will occupy office simultaneously. The other two judges serving in the Supreme Court are Justice R Banumathi and Justice Indu Malhotra, having tenure till July 2020 and March 2021 respectively. Justice Banerjee is the eighth woman judge in the history of the Supreme Court and will retire in 2022.
The Centre also cleared the appointment of Justice Rajendra Menon as Chief Justice of Delhi High Court. It was on July 16 the Collegium of the Supreme Court recommended three names for the Supreme Court and cleared names of Chief Justices of seven High Courts.
The Centre late on Friday cleared all names and sent it to the President for his signature and issuance of warrant of appointment. There was speculation over the appointment of Justice KM Joseph as judge of the Supreme Court as this was the only name that was reiterated by the Collegium on July 16. After his name was first forwarded to the Centre on January 10, the Centre replied in April citing his lack of seniority for not accepting the recommendation. The Centre in its note even highlighted that several High Courts had remained unrepresented in the Supreme Court for a considerable time. The Collegium comprising Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and his four senior most colleagues examined each objection and reiterated Justice Joseph’s name finding nothing adverse against him.
It is interesting to note that appointment of judges in the Supreme Court and High Courts are continuing under the old existing Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) despite an amended draft MoP prepared by the Centre is yet to be cleared by the Collegium.
The lack of transparency in the process of selecting and appointing judges in the closed-door Collegium meetings came under scrutiny after the Supreme Court struck down a Constitutional Amendment brought by the Government to replace the Collegium with a National Judicial Appointment Commission (NJAC). The purpose was to make the decision-making body inclusive of persons other than judges, which included eminent legal luminaries and the law Minister.
In October 2015, the NJAC was declared constitutionally “illegal” and “void” and two months down the line, the same five-judge Constitution Bench gave Centre the go-ahead to reform the Collegium system. This reform in the form of the draft MoP is yet to be implemented.