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Court also expressed concerns over the names that had been recently recommended, eight candidates were not appointed, even though some of them were senior to others whose names had been cleared by the government.
Supreme Court on Monday pulled up the Centre for its selective stance at clearing proposals for transfer of judge made by the Collegium.
A bench of Justices SK Kaul and Sudhanshu Dhulia questioned the Centre on collegium recommendations for transfer of other high court judges being approved other than the Gujarat High Court.
"This does not send a good signal. Don't do selective transfers. It creates its own dynamics. What signal do you send when out of the transfers recommended, four judges from Gujarat are not transferred...", the bench added.
Court then went on to defer the hearing at the behest of the Attorney General.
Last month, the Supreme Court had observed that the Central government had “suddenly” forwarded all 70 pending proposals to the CJI DY Chandrachud-led Collegium in the last few days.
The bench went on to term this as a positive development. Earlier, the Supreme Court had revoiced its concerns over delay on part of the Centre in dealing with collegium recommendations sent to it.
Seventy recommendations made by us since November 11, 2022 are pending with the Union Government, Justice SK Kaul had told AG Venkataramani.
Expressing its willingness to monitor the situation closely, the bench had further indicated that it would take up the issue every 10 days now.
These observations were made after the AG sought an adjournment for a week to consult with the government.
Earlier this year, Justice Kaul had told the AG who had submitted that new appointments of judges would be notified soon that, "Sometimes you take days, sometimes you do it overnight. Where is the uniformity? We will give you ten days".
Notably, the Supreme Court had in November last year, expressed displeasure at the Law Ministry for keeping appointments of judges pending, after the collegium has given them a go-ahead.
Court had then said that the inaction of the executive to confirm the appointments was being used as "some sort of a device to compel these persons to withdraw their names".
The bench made these observations in a petition filed by the Advocates Association Bengaluru, which has stated that "inordinate delays in the appointment of Judges to the Hon’ble High Courts after the recommendation by the Collegium headed by Hon’ble the Chief Justice of India even after reiteration, is a direct contravention of the judgment dated 06.10.1993 passed by a Bench of Nine Hon’ble Judges of this Hon’ble Court in the Second Judges case (M/s PLR Projects Pvt. Ltd. v. Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd.)."
Case Title: The Association of Advocates Bengaluru vs. Shri Barun Mitra, Secretary (Justice) & Anr.
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