Supreme Court dilutes norms to pick judges: Relaxes Criteria For Lawyers, Leaves Centre In A Fix

Source: Times of India dated 2nd April 2019

Pradeep.Thakur@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:
Six months after the Supreme Court collegium deferred recommendations for appointment of 16 advocates as judges of Allahabad high court based on objections raised by the Centre, it has now recommended 10 of them after diluting certain appointment criteria finalised by the five top judges of the apex court in 2017.

The latest recommendations, which include the brother-in-law of a SC judge and the son of a former HC judge besides some others earlier disqualified on income parameters, has created procedural problems for the Centre, which could once again refer the matter back to the SC. The threejudge SC collegium’s decision, it is felt, is violative of certain conditions of appointment of HC judges as determined in the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) finalised by the top judges of the apex court.

On March 10, 2017, a five-judge SC collegium — comprising then CJI J S Khehar and Justices Dipak Misra, J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi and Madan B Lokur — unanimously finalised the MoP and sent it to the Centre with clearly laid down income criteria that a candidate from the bar should have an average professional income of Rs 7 lakh or more in the preceding five years.

The MoP was finalised in compliance with an order passed by a constitution bench of the SC on December 16, 2015, in the National Judicial Appointments Commission case.

The latest order of the apex court collegium for appointments in Allahabad high court — dated February 12 and signed by CJI Ranjan Gogoi and Justices A K Sikri and S A Bobde — has diluted the income criteria as many candidates fell short of the required annual income norm.

“The collegium has duly taken note of the fact that net professional income of some of the recommendees is less than the prescribed minimum limit of Rs 7 lakh. The collegium considers it appropriate to relax the income criterion to a reasonable extent in cases where such recommendees belong to categories of SC/ST/ OBC or represent government in their capacity as standing/panel counsel before the courts,” the collegium said.

The government, however, is perplexed at the dilution of the income criteria as the apex court collegium, since finalisation of the 2017 MoP, had rejected at least a dozen recommendations for appointment as judges of the high courts of Kerala, Orissa, Madras and Calcutta.

If the government goes ahead with the collegium’s latest recommendations, it could invite litigation from those who were rejected in the recent past on income criteria. The MoP finalised in 2017 had set minimum age at 45 years for an advocate to be recommended for HC judge with the upper limit set at 55 years.

The MoP had also clarified that an advocate be an income tax assessee for the preceding 10 years and have a minimum average net professional income.