Days after Justice Jasti Chelameswar, the second senior-most judge of the Supreme Court, sent a letter to CJI Dipak Misra, asking for a full court hearing on the issue of the executive’s continual interference in the judiciary, another senior-most judge Justice Kurian Joseph has shot off a letter to Chief Justice Dipak Misra, urging him to act on the non-elevation of senior advocate Indu Malhotra and a high court judge KM Joseph to the apex court despite being recommended by Collegium.

According to an Indian Express report, his letter, a copy of which has been sent to the other 22 Supreme Court judges, Justice Joseph wrote that “government owes a duty to take a call on the recommendation as soon as the same is sent from the Collegium. Failure to discharge their duty by sitting over on the recommendations of the Collegium doing nothing, in administrative law, is abuse of power.”

“It is the first time in the history of this court where nothing is known as to what has happened to a recommendation after three months,” Justice Joseph was quoted as saying in the report.

The report further quoted Justice Joseph as saying: “The dignity, honour and respect of this institution is going down day by day since we are not able to take the recommendations for appointment to this Court to their logical conclusion within the normally expected times.

“Government owes a duty to take a call on the recommendation as soon as the same is sent from the Collegium,” he wrote. “Failure to discharge their duty by sitting over on the recommendations of the Collegium doing nothing, in administrative law, is abuse of power. More than anything else, it sends a wrong message which is loud and clear to all judges down the line not to cause any displeasure to the executive lest they should suffer. Is this not a threat to the independence of the judiciary?”

The Collegium had cleared the names of Malhotra and Justice KM Joseph in January 2018. Malhotra was to become the first woman lawyer to be elevated to the post of the Supreme Court judge straight from the bar. Justice Joseph was elevated from the post of Chief Justice of Uttarakhand High Court to the apex court judgeship. Of late, there were reports in the media that Malhotra had resumed her practice at the apex court owning to non-elevation.

Justice Joseph was the one who, as Chief Justice of the Uttarakhand High Court, had dismissed President’s rule imposed on the state by the Union government, ordering a floor test.

—India Legal Bureau