With regular hearing of matters beginning, on Monday (July 2), with the end of the Supreme Court’s summer vacation, the issue of delays in judicial appointments and its effect on dispensation of justice – particularly in the high courts – too made a comeback.

Hearing a petition filed by the Madras Bar Association that has sought strict timelines to be implemented for each stage of the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) of the judicial appointments process, the Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud, however, observed that “some progress” had been made in clearing the said appointments.

Though the bench adjourned the hearing in the matter to August, the Chief Justice asserted that “a couple of appointments had been effected” and that “some progress” had been made.

The petition filed by the Madras Bar Association, represented in the case by senior advocate Arvind Datar, has red-flagged the “arbitrary and inordinate delay by the Executive” in effecting the recommendations of the Supreme Court and High Court collegiums, and termed this as being “violative of Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution.”

The petition highlights that there are over 400 vacancies in the 24 High Courts across the country. Importantly, with Justice Jasti Chelameswar’s retirement from the Supreme Court last month, the number of vacancies of judges in the top court now stands at eight.

The Madras Bar Association has, through its petition, called for directions to the Centre to process recommendations made by the Supreme Court and High Court collegiums. It also points out that hundreds of appointments to the high courts are in an inexplicable state of limbo, having been stuck at various stages of the appointment process and that this amounts to an “exercise of the indirect veto by the Executive”.

The petition urges the top court to set specific timelines in the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) for the appointment of judges, asserting that the existing MoPs are “entirely silent on the timelines for the appointment of Judges to this Hon’ble Court and Permanent Judges to the High Courts, thus giving the Executive a carte blanche to stonewall the recommendations sent by the respective Collegia.”

The petitioners have also placed reliance on the Second Judges Case of 1993, where adherence to a time bound schedule was deemed necessary to prevent any undue delay and avoid dilatory methods in the appointment process.

It may be recalled that in April, CJI Misra had refused to entertain the claims of urgency in two writ petitions seeking the expeditious appointment of judges to the Calcutta High Court.

—With agency inputs, India Legal Bureau