NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday decided to consider a matter highlighting inordinate delay on the part of the Centre in connection with the appointment of judges after the Collegium reiterated their names.
A bench of Chief Justice of India B R Gavai and Justice K Vinod Chandran said it will hear the pleas after two weeks.
"We are also trying to pursue on the administrative side, and quite a few names have been cleared," the CJI said as senior advocate Arvind Datar and advocate Prashant Bhushan mentioned the pleas filed by Advocates Association, Bengaluru and others, before the bench for urgent listing.
They said the petitions were listed in 2023 but were suddenly dropped from the cause list.
Datar said there are names of some judges which were reiterated in 2019, then 2020 and 2022, but till now they have not been cleared. "This court has a fixed time limit for taking decisions at every stage. A delay of a few weeks is understandable, but a delay of four years is not understandable at all," he said.
The counsel also referred to instances where advocates in Delhi and Mumbai, whose names were recommended, eventually withdrew their names.
In the case of an advocate from Delhi, the CJI said when a woman advocate's name was not cleared by the Centre, he tried to persuade on the administrative side. Datar said the matter was last taken up by a bench led by the then Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul.
Due to such delays, the candidate whose name has been recommended for judgeship by the Supreme Court collegium gradually loses interest and seniority, the counsel said.
With regard to the woman advocate from Delhi, Bhushan contended that she was a topper of a National Law School and claimed that this has been happening repeatedly. He also submitted in the case of Governors, the apex court has fixed a timeline for clearing bills.
The bench, however, asked Bhushan not to mention anything sub-judice. Notably, the matter related to fixing of time line for the Governor and the President to clear the Bills passed by State legislature is pending consideration before the Constitution bench in a presidential reference.
