Appointment of judges has begun : Mukul Rohatgi to Chief Justice of India TS Thakur

NEW DELHI: The Centre has told the Supreme Court that there was no logjam in appointing judges to superior courts, in a conciliatory gesture which may end the alleged stand-off between the executive and judiciary on the appointments.

“There is no logjam. It will happen,” Attorney General of India, Mukul Rohatgi, told a bench comprising CJI TS Thakur and AM Khanwilkar. “There is some progress. I am expecting some more progress,” he assured the CJI who had at the last hearing demanded answers from him and warned of judicial action with the acute shortage of judges in high courts. The AG handed over a sealed cover report to the CJI, urging the court to give it “serious consideration”.

At the outset, the CJI demanded to know if there was any progress on appointing judges to high courts, which have been functioning at less than 40 per cent judge strength that have crippled their functioning and seen pendency shoot up exponentially.

“Is there any progress? Or is it status quo?” the CJI asked. The AG, who was seen waiting patiently for hours for the case to be taken up, replied in the affirmative. The CJI then sought to know what had happened to appointments to the Chhattisgarh high court.

“I visited Chhattisgarh recently…the bar and the bench there were complaining. From the sanctioned judge strength of 22 the judge strength has gone down to 8. That is a third of the sanctioned strength,” he told the AG. “That is done,” the AG said. Three appointments to the high court were pending.

“Kerala is also done.” Of the older recommendations, only Allahabad remains, the AG told the CJI.

“Others were done in April-May. Where’s the delay?” he told reporters later outside. The AG also sought to hold out a mirror to the manner in which the judiciary deals with such appointments, pointing out that the process of appointing replacements were initiated five to seven years after a vacancy arose. “One must start a race on time to finish on time,” he said, adding quickly as an afterthought that he was not indulging in “blame-game”.

“By and large, appointments are pretty much delayed. We are not talking months of delays. We are talking years. Appointments for 2007 are being done now,” he told the CJI who brushed it off. The CJI instead said: “After all that arduous process, we send it to you.

If you have any problems send it back to us. If you do not have a problem, it should come back. It should not get stuck.” Several transfers of high court judges and chief justices are stuck with the government.

The CJI then adjourned the case till September 30, to study the AG’s detailed explanation. This would also permit the government more time to clear more appointments.