As three new Supreme Court judges were sworn in by Chief Justice Dipak Misra Tuesday (August 7) morning, the troubling issue of Uttarakhand Chief Justice K M Joseph’s name appearing at No. 3 in the government notification remained unresolved.  A delegation of judges had approached the CJI yesterday to sort out the issue of what they called a “shocking” act of downgrading Justice Joseph and not giving respect to his seniority, but their efforts were in vain.

Yesterday the CJI had reportedly had a talk with Attorney General K K Venugopal to convey the discomfort of the Supreme Court judges, but it seems that the government has been adamant in its stand that Justice Joseph is junior as a high court judge to the other judges sworn in. The other two sworn in today were Justices Indira Banerjee and Vineet Saran. The judges who had been troubled had argued that Justice Joseph deserved prime treatment because his name was forwarded by the Collegium to the government first.

Again, going by tradition, Justice Indira Banerjee, the seniormost of the three, shared the CJI bench at court today. Tradition says that a new judge, sworn in, shares the CJI bench on his opening day.

Justice Joseph was in court No. 3, along with Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta.

Despite the apparent setback for the government in the elevation issue of Justice Joseph, the government seems to have had the last laugh as far as the seniority issue of Justice Joseph goes. It has stuck to its guns and cited high court appointment dates, hence it would become difficult for Justice Joseph to even lead a bench in the near future.

The issue, while it remains hanging fire, has done little to ease executive-judiciary clashes, as was perceived earlier.

—India Legal Bureau