SC for definite timelines in appointment of judges

The Supreme Court on Friday called for "definite timelines" to ensure appointment of judges in a time-bound manner, saying more than  one-year delay in the process belied the hope and trust of the litigants.

A bench of Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan held that retired judicial officers can be appointed as High Court judges under Article 217(2) (a) of the Constitution. The court also said appointment of additional judges who have less than two years to retire was not contrary to Article 224.

In its judgement, the court lamented the inordinate delays at the level of the high court collegium and then by the executive in processing the appointments, affecting early disposal of cases and the tenure of candidates.

The bench referred to its 1993-Constitution bench judgment in 'Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association and Others Vs Union of India', which stated that the process of appointment must be initiated at least one month prior to the date of an anticipated vacancy.

"It was done to achieve an ideal situation, namely, to ensure that the post is filled up immediately after the occurrence of the vacancy so that no time is lost. Unfortunately, it still remains a far cry," the court said.

Unpleasant situation  

The court came across "unpleasant situation" in several cases where names are not forwarded by the High Court for months even after the vacancy has arisen; once the names are forwarded, they remain pending at the executive level for unduly long time and at certain times when Collegium cleared the names, the government sits on them for various reasons.

It pointed out that there have been instances when the entire process takes more than a year to complete after the names have been forwarded to the government by the Collegium.

"All this results in inordinate delay. It is, therefore, in the interest of all the stakeholders, including the judiciary, that definite timelines are drawn for each stage of the process so that process of appointment is accomplished within a time-bound manner," the bench said.

The court passed its judgement while upholding the appointment of two additional judges in the Rajasthan High Court. The court rejected a plea by advocate Sunil Samdaria, who challenged the appointments on the ground that since they had retired as judicial officers, they could not be appointed for a period less than two years under Article 224 of the Constitution.