'Put Your Own House in Order First': Attorney General's Message to SC on Delay in Appointing Judges

Questioned over the delay in appointing judges, on Monday, the Central Govt questioned the Apex Court over its exercise & said the Judiciary needs to first put its own house in order.

Attorney General KK Venugopal told the Supreme Court that "Let high courts reform themselves first. Why question the government for 100-odd days in vetting a name when high courts take five years in sending names for appointments?"

Attorney General was earlier directed by a bench headed by Justice Sanjay K Kaul to demonstrate through a chart the timeline of judicial appointments in HCs & in the Apex Court.

This chart, as adduced by Venugopal, showed that various authorities in the Central Govt took 127 days to clear a name after a report from the Intelligence Bureau (IB).

When the bench expressed concern about the time being taken following the report of Intelligence Bureau, Attorney General retorted by asking why to blame the authorities to verify & vet these reports when the SC Collegium itself takes 119 days to decide despite having before it all the reports.

When AG told the Judges through the statistics regarding vacancy situations in the HCs & the names currently pending before the Govt, Justice Joseph said that once the names have been reiterated by the SC Collegium, the Govt is bound to process those appointments.

This prompted Venugopal to question the Collegium system of appointing judges & said the Govt also has a duty to see how judges are appointed.

"Then what prevents the Govt from bringing a new law on this?" the bench asked Attorney General Venugopal, who replied that the Govt will like to bring another amendment if that is what is suggested by the court.

Attorney General then pointed out that high courts of Bombay, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand & Andhra Pradesh have taken more than 60 months to recommend names for appointments to high courts.

"What is this 100-odd days by the Govt when high courts take more than five years in recommending names? Let high courts reform them first. Issue notices to all 25 high courts & ask them what is the reasons for their delay," Attorney General told the bench.

Venugopal added that out of 396 vacancies across the HCs, not a single name has been sent for 199 positions.

At this, Justice Kaul remarked that the bench's only endeavour is to see how the system can work better. The bench acknowledged that almost 40 per cent of chairs in the HCs are presently vacant.

The SC then decided to seek responses from the registrar-generals of all HCs regarding their vacancies & the tentative timeline to send the recommendations.

The Court order said that "Inordinate delays in making recommendations in high courts. Situation in some of the high courts is more alarming than the others. Chief Justices must make endeavours to recommend names. There appears to be some hesitation in some high courts to recommend names till the earlier recommendations are cleared. This is not required & the recommendation of names should be a continuing process".

The court also urged Attorney General Venugopal to keep up his efforts to get the recommended names cleared & fixed the matter for hearing after four weeks.

While hearing a matter relating to strikes by Advocates in Odisha, the Court had embarked upon the issue of delay in judicial appointments & had sought assistance of the Attorney General Venugopal.

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