The Centre has refused to play ball with the Collegium by returning the latter’s recommendation for the second time around to appoint an additional judge of the Patna High Court.
The development comes in the wake of the Government’s standoff with the judiciary on implementing the amended Memorandum of Procedure for appointments to the higher judiciary.
The Chief Justice of India-headed collegium had in April this year returned a file relating to the Patna High Court appointment overruling the objection raised by Centre showing “adverse” reports against the selected name based on Intelligence Bureau input.
Official sources confirmed that on receipt of the file, the Government has decided to again request the collegium to reconsider its decision citing IB report. Earlier, the collegium had proposed the same name in November 2013 but the matter went in limbo after the Government had introduced the law creating a National Judicial Appointment Commission. later the apex court struck down the law as unconstitutional in October 2015 reverting to the old existing practice.
This is not the first time the Government has put its foot down by refusing to affirm the collegium’s choice. Recently, the Government had opposed to the elevation of a High Court Chief Justice for a second time after noting some adverse remarks recorded by Supreme Court judges who knew the said judge.
However, the present case related to elevation of a judicial officer of Bihar Judicial Service as an additional judge of the Patna High Court. The Centre’s repeated refusal to yield to the requests of the Commission has created an unfortunate standoff at a time when the Chief Justice of India TS Thakur has raised the pitch to fill judicial vacancies. CJI Thakur even broke down at a function here in front of the Prime Minister requesting executive’s help to push forward collegium recommendations.
All judicial appointments follow a Memorandum of Procedure (MoP), under which if the collegium reiterates its recommendation, the Government has to make the appointment. However, there is no time-frame by when the Centre is to act on the recommendation. After NJAC was struck down, the MoP was amended by Centre by making the selection body broad-based giving Centre a better participatory role to accept or reject to a proposed choice. The collegium has reportedly refused to accept the amendments.