Govt asks SC collegium to reconsider Karnataka judge's elevation

The government is learnt to have returned a file relating to the elevation of a Karnataka High Court judge as the Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court to the Supreme Court collegium with a request to reconsider its decision.

The Law Ministry is understood to have returned the file relating to the elevation of Justice K L Manjunath as Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court to the Supreme Court collegium headed by Chief Justice of India Justice R M Lodha.

As per practice, Justice Lodha had consulted a senior Supreme Court judge who had served in the Karnataka High Court, on the elevation of Justice Manjunath.

The senior judge had flagged certain issues in his two-page note to the SC collegium.

Taking note of the issues raised by the senior SC judge, the Law Ministry returned the file to the collegium with a request to reconsider its recommendation.

As per the Memorandum of Procedure for appointment of High Court judges, the CJI sends his recommendation for the appointment of a puisne judge of the High Court as Chief Justice of High Court in consultation with the two seniormost judges of the Supreme Court.

He also ascertains the views of the seniormost colleague in the Supreme Court who is conversant with the affairs of the High Court in which the recommendee has been functioning.

If the SC collegium sticks to its recommendation, the government will have to approve the name.

This for the second time that the NDA government has returned to the SC collegium file pertaining to appointment of a judge.

Chief Justice Lodha had expressed unhappiness at the government's decision to unilaterally segregate the name of senior lawyer Gopal Subramanium's from three others who were appointed to the top court.

"I fail to understand how the appointment to a high constitutional post has been dealt with in a casual manner. The segregation of Gopal Subramanium's file was done unilaterally without my knowledge and concurrence which was not proper," Justice Lodha had said.

But the government had defended its decision to return the recommendation of the SC collegium saying its move was based on "proper, cogent and sound" grounds.