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The bench was hearing a plea against the recommendation made by the Supreme Court collegium to appoint lawyer Lekshmana Chandra Victoria Gowri as a Madras High Court judge.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a plea challenging the appointment of Adv. L Victoria Gowri as judge of Madras High Court ahead of her oath-taking ceremony.
A bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and BR Gavai refused to entertain the petition while stating that the reasons stipulating the dismissal will follow.
The petitioner had claimed that Ms. Gowri's purported statements of hatred towards Muslims and Christians rendered her ineligible to take the oath.
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.
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