CJI fails to persuade Justice Chelameswar to attend collegium meetings

NEW DELHI: Chief Justice of India JS Khehar has been unable to persuade Justice Jasti Chelameswar to attend meetings of the Supreme Court collegium, in a setback to his plans to quickly fill up vacancies in the top court.

The current strength of the Supreme Court is 25, against a sanctioned strength of 31.

Justice Chelameswar had boycotted the collegium meetings since August to record his displeasure over the alleged non-transparent manner in which the collegium meetings were held.

Justice Chelameswar is now the third seniormost judge in the top court hierarchy and would have to vet both appointments to the top court as well as high courts. The other members of the collegium are Justices Dipak Misra, Ranjan Gogoi and Madan B Lokur.

His decision to boycott the recent collegium meeting could create a logjam over judicial appointments at the judicial end, even before names are sent to the law ministry for final orders. It may cast a shadow on any appointments made in his absence though the convention is that the collegium decides against recommending a judge’s name for appointment only if two judges dissent.

“The collegium can go ahead if only one dissents,” a judicial representative said.

Justice Chelameswar has demanded that collegium members give reasons in writing for accepting or rejecting names for appointment as judges but the judicial representative who did not wish to be identified said that such a process was fraught with risks.

“What happens if the adverse comments against any sitting high court judge, being considered for elevation, is leaked? Will he be able to function after that,” the representative asked.

Justice Chelameswar also demanded that collegium members go by objective criteria for selecting judges. “It cannot be that they use seniority as a judge and seniority as a high court chief justice or representation for a particular high court as they please,” a person close to Justice Chelameswar said.

The new CJI had declared in open court that he would fill the vacancies in the Supreme Court by the month end. This had prompted speculation that Justice Chelameswar’s conditions would be adhered to. Justice Chelameswar was the only judge who had dissented against striking down the NJAC Act which would have given final say over judicial appointments to the executive.

He had reasoned that it was wrong to keep out elected representatives from the process in a democracy. Half of the high courts function at a quarter of their strength, heralding a near-collapse of the justice delivery mechanism in high courts.