Supreme Court warns Centre over delay in judges' appointment

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday slammed the Centre for sitting over the recommendations for the appointment of High Court and Supreme Court judges. The court noted that out of 68 pending recommendations by the collegium, 21 names have been pending for over one and a half years, but the government has not yet taken any steps to appoint the judges.

The court also remarked that the appointments had "been at a standstill for over two months". "There appears to be unhappiness of the government on the issue that the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) didn't muster the constitutional mandate. But that doesn't mean you don't comply with the law of the land. Sometimes a law may be upheld by the court. Can you say no, we will not implement the law? You have to enforce it," said the bench of Justices SK Kaul and AS Oka.

The top court observed that the government cannot withhold the names for recommendation by the collegium "for however long you want". It also said that the recommendation cannot be halted by citing additional information. "You can't say some further information has come. That information has to come back to the court to express your reservation," remarked Justice Kaul.

Justice Kaul further said the halt on appointment of judges affects seniority and the quality of judges. "You appoint some people from one list, then you skip and appoint someone from another list.

That affects seniority. Quality of judges will be affected," he said.

He also brought to the court's notice an instance where a lawyer decided to withdraw his consent to be recommended as a judge, due to the "torturous delay".

"These are first gen lawyers coming from your National law schools… What signal are we sending? It pains us! We kept thinking things will improve but what is this?" He said further. The bench has now requested the Attorney General (AG) R Venkataramani and Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta to take up the issue with the government. "As the highest law officer of the country, your duty is to see that the appointment of good people is made," the bench told the AG. "We are asking the SG and AG to play the role of the law officer and advise the government to ensure that the law of the land is observed," said the bench.

The matter will now be taken up on December 8.