SC declines to hear urgently on elevation of 3 HC Chief Justices

New Delhi, Nov 22 (UNI) The Supreme Court has declined to give urgent hearing to the government for immediately clearing recommendations of the Supreme Court collegium for elevation of three High Court Chief Justices as Supreme Court judges.

A bench, comprising the Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice P Sathasivam, yesterday refused to hear urgently a PIL filed by an advocate R K Kapoor, requesting the apex court to let the petition come up for hearing in normal course.

There has been open confrontation between the judiciary and the government on the recommendations of the Supreme Court collegium as three senior most Chief Justices of various High Courts A P Shah, V K Gupta and Patnaik were ignored.

The collegium had recommended the names of Justices A K Ganguly, R M Lodha and H L Dattu.

The government is also unhappy with the judiciary for not having any woman judge in the Supreme Court since the retirement of Justice Ruma Pal, who retired in November 2007.

The recommendations were sent back by the government to the Chief Justice of India for reconsideration but the Supreme Court Collegium reasserted the recommendations and returned the file to the government with the same. As per the nine-judge-bench of the Supreme Court judgement, government is now bound to accept the recommendations of the collegium, which comprises of five senior most judges of the Supreme Court including the Chief Justice of India.

The only hitch is that there is no time limit within which the recommendations have to be accepted and the government can take its own time in sending the file to President Pratibha Devisingh Patil, who will issue the warrant of appointment.

UNI SC GL RN1901