Senior advocate Indu Malhotra has received the Presidential warrant to take oath as a Supreme Court judge. She is the first woman lawyer to be appointed as a judge in India’s apex court. But the Modi government continues to remain silent on the appointment of Uttarakhand High Court Chief Justice KM Joseph. Both names were recommended on January 10 by the Supreme Court’s five-judge collegium, which includes CJI Dipak Misra.
But the Law Ministry had sought legal opinion to issue the warrant of appointment only for Indu Malhotra. It allegedly wanted to keep Justice K M Joseph’s case pending because, some believe, Justice K M Joseph in April 2016 had ruled against the Centre in the case of imposing President’s Rule in Uttarakhand.
“If his name is returned, the Collegium can reiterate his name which will make it incumbent upon the government to issue a warrant for his appointment to the Supreme Court,” an Indian express report said on Thursday.
Sources told The Indian Express that “the Collegium is determined to not recommend more names if the Centre does not clear this one”.
The Express report also pointed out that the NDA government had turned down the recommendation of the Collegium to appoint senior advocate Gopal Subramaniam as a judge to the Supreme Court. “Justice Subramaniam was active and forceful in his position on the Gujarat riots in 2002 and perceived to be ‘close’ to the UPA leadership,” the report stated.
Earlier this month, the Centre ignored the Collegium’s recommendation of making Punjab and Haryana High Court judge Ramendra Jain’s appointment permanent. The Modi government instead only extended the judge’s tenure by six months. The Print said that it was perhaps the first instance of the Centre taking a unilateral step of this kind since the Collegium was established.
Only this Sunday, a full-court meeting was sought for in a letter to the CJI by SC judges Ranjan Gogoi and Madan Lokur to discuss “institutional issues” and the “future” of the court.
Earlier, SC judge Kurian Joseph wrote to the CJI, urging him to act on non-appointment of judges by the Centre. The “very life and existence” of the Supreme Court of India is under threat and “history will not pardon us” if the court doesn’t respond to the government’s unprecedented act of sitting on the Collegium’s recommendation to elevate a judge and a senior advocate to the apex court, Justice Kurian Joseph said in the letter, details of which were published in an Indian Express report on April 12. The same report says the letter mentioned that the executive not clearing the names sends the message that if judges don’t toe the line of the government, they will suffer.
Senior judge J Chelameswar had also written to CJI, on March 21, asking him to summon a full-court meeting to discuss Centre’s interference in the Supreme Court’s work.
In an unprecedented move on January 12, four senior sitting judges of the Supreme Court, including Justice Kurian Joseph, had addressed a press conference and complained that the administration of the country’s top court was not in order. The judges had said there was an urgent need to preserve the judiciary system to save the democracy of the country.