Six years ago, Supreme Court criticized former CJI for getting swayed by govt

NEW DELHI: Six years ago, the Supreme Court was scathing in its criticism of former Chief Justice RC Lahoti for surrendering the judiciary’s primacy and “swaying to the UPA government’s view” in 2005 to grant extension of service to a Madras high court judge, referred as “corrupt” by former SC judge Markandey Katju.
The “corrupt” judge was appointed as an additional judge in Madras HC on April 3, 2003.The SC in its 2008 judgment had disapproved of repeated extensions of his service as ‘additional judge’. He was appointed as a permanent judge on February 3, 2007 during the tenure of Justice KG Balakrishnan as CJI.
The judge’s suitability to be appointed as a judge and extensions as ‘additional judge’ without confirming him was questioned by former law minister Shanti Bhushan and advocate Kamini Jaiswal in a writ petition, which was decided on December 17, 2008 by a bench of justices Arijit Pasayat and MK Sharma.
The bench scrutinized records relating to his appointment and extensions and said, “On April 29, 2005, the collegium including then Chief Justice of India (Justice Lahoti) was of the view that the name of respondent No.2 (the judge) cannot be recommended along with another judge for confirmation as permanent judge.”
“Since it is crystal clear that the judges are not concerned with any political angle, if there be any, in the matter of appointment as additional judge or permanent judge, the then Chief Justice should have stuck to the view expressed by the collegium and should not have swayed by the views of the government to recommend extension of the term of respondent No.2 for one year as it amounted to surrender of primacy by jugglery of words,” said Justice Pasayat, who had authored the judgment.
It agreed with Bhushan and Jaiswal on the judge’s unsuitability to be appointed as ‘permanent’ judge, but fused to quash his appointment mainly because the challenge came too late, towards his retirement day.
“It is to be noted that he is due to retire on July 9, 2009. As noted above, at various points of time, when the term of appointment as an additional judge of the respondent No.2 was extended, there was no challenge. The situation prevailed for more than two years As noted above, the clock cannot be put back,” it had said.
The bench added, “Judges, like Caesar’s wife, should be above suspicion.”