Supreme Court collegium sends 2 more names

The Supreme Court is close to achieving zero vacancies for the first time in recent past as the collegium takes the historic decision to recommend four names to the Centre to be appointed as judges. None of the candidates is female. The collegium comprises Chief Justice of India (CJI) and four senior-most judges: Justices SA Bobde, NV Ramana, Arun Mishra and RF Nariman.

The four nominations include the two names (Justices Aniruddha Bose and AS Bopanna) returned by the Centre, citing objection over their seniority and lack of representation from other high courts. The collegium met again on Wednesday to consider the Centre's objection and added two new names to the list: Justices Bhushan Ramkrishna Gavai and Surya Kant.

If all four are cleared, the judicial workforce in Supreme Court will touch the total sanctioned strength of 31. The seniority list of high court judges maintained by the Department of Justice of the Central Government ranked Justice Bose at No 12 and Justice Bopanna at No 36. Moreover, their parent high courts – Calcutta and Karnataka – are already represented in the top court.

The collegium recommended the names solely on merit. "Though inter-se seniority amongst judges and their combined seniority on all-India basis should be given due weight, merit should be the predominant consideration," it said. Also, since nothing adverse was cited by the Centre regarding their competence, conduct or integrity, the collegium decided to reiterate their April 12 recommendation.

The fresh recommendations are also of interest: Justice Gavai belongs to the Scheduled Caste community, and this is one of the reasons he was pushed despite Bombay HC being adequately represented.

If appointed, Justice Gavai will go on to become Chief Justice of India and become only the second judge from the Scheduled Caste community to reach the top slot after Justice (Retd) KG Balakrishnan (CJI (from January 14, 2007, to May 12, 2010).

"Justice Gavai ranks No 4 among judges hailing from Bombay HC," said the collegium. "His recommendation in no way is to be misconstrued to mean that three senior-most judges from Bombay High Court (two of whom are Chief Justices) are less suitable. On his appointment, the Supreme Court Bench will have a judge belonging to Scheduled Caste category after about a decade."

Justice Surya Kant stands at No 2 among the judges of Punjab and Haryana High Court. If his appointment goes through, the SC will have two judges from that court, which is the third largest in the country. He is currently 57 years old, and upon elevation, will be a top court judge for close to eight years and will go on to become CJI as well.