Read Time: 04 minutes
3 days ago, the top court had said, while passing dismissal order against plea challenging the appointment that it will shortly declare its reasons for doing so
The Supreme Court on Friday said that it cannot go into the suitability of a candidate who is to be elevated to judgeship. Court has passed the order in a plea challenging appointment of Advocate L Victoria Gowri (Now Justice Gowri) as an additional judge in Madras High Court.
On Tuesday, court had dismissed the plea and had stated that a reasons stipulating the reasons it has dismissed the plea will follow. Three days later, it noted that that constitutional order dictates that suitability of the candidate who is to be elevated is not for the court to decide on.
A bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and BR Gavai had refused to entertain the petition which had claimed that Justice Gowri's purported statements of hatred towards Muslims and Christians rendered her ineligible to take the oath.
On the last date, Senior Advocate Raju Ramachandran appearing for petitioners challenging Gowri’s appointment to judgeship said, “Yesterday Justice Chandrachud had said that the Collegium has taken the cognizance of the issue".
Senior Advocate Raju said that "equal justice is part of Article 12. A person who is not in sync with the ideals of the Constitution, should not take the oath as the oath specifies this. Victoria Gowri has uttered things in public which are against ideals of the Constitution."
To which, Justice Khanna raised the query: "Have people with political affiliations not been appointed as judges?"
The Senior Advocate replied that "Justice Rajinder Sachar was from a political view, Justice Krishna Iyer… (named other judges with political background). But she (victoria gowri) indulged in hate speech."
To this, the bench said, "We can’t get into decisions of the collegium. We have a fairly robust process to choose judges."
Referring to an article written by Gowri, the Senior Advocate said that the petitioner is not saying that the collegium has not performed its functions but the information may have been withheld.
Concluding the hearing, the bench dismissed the petition.
Please Login or Register
