New Delhi: The Supreme Court collegium has questioned the government's move to hold "detailed scrutiny" of professional record of advocates and judicial officers recommended for a judgeship by high courts, but the Law Ministry continues to send a summary of the candidates' professional track record to the body of top five judges.
In July 2017, the Law Ministry had informed the Cabinet Secretary that, "now the process of detailed scrutiny of proposals received for the appointment of judges from high courts has been initiated."
"In the case of advocates, their reported judgements (in cases they represented), and in case of judicial officers their case disposal time and many adjournments are being evaluated by an in-house team having a legal background.
But the government's move was recently questioned by the apex court collegium.
"As regards the comments regarding her professional competence, it is for the judiciary to assess her performance. Professional competence cannot be adjudged from unconfirmed/unsubstantiated inputs," the collegium noted while approving the elevation of a woman judicial officer to the Madras High Court as an additional judge.
A senior government functionary said the SC collegium has said "nothing explicitly to the government about the scrutiny. But the noting on the collegium recommendation makes it clear that they have not taken the move kindly."
The functionary said the Department of Justice in the Law Ministry continues to send a summary of all judicial officers and lawyers being considered for appointment as judges of high courts to the SC collegium.
In case of lawyers, their list of the reported judgements of cases which they have argued in the high court is made part of the summary. The judicial officers are evaluated on various attributes and are given numerical grading. As per procedure, once the three-member high court collegium recommends a name to the SC collegium, the HC panel also sends the performance record of the candidate.
The recommendation is initially sent to the law ministry, which attaches an IB report about the candidate's overall record and forwards it to the SC collegium for a final call.
Citing the case of former Calcutta High Court judge justice C S Karnan – who was sentenced to six months in jail by the Supreme Court for contempt of court – the government had in July last year once again asked the Supreme Court collegium to review the process of appointment of judges, according to the senior government functionary.
The Secretary (Justice) in the Law Ministry has written to the Supreme Court Registrar General pointing to the July 5 judgement of the apex court in which two judges had called for the need to revisit the process of selection and appointment of judges.
Judicial appointments as of now are being carried out based on the old memorandum of procedure (MoP). After a bench headed by then, Chief Justice J S Khehar ruled in December 2015 in favour of a fresh MoP - a document which guides appointments and elevation of Supreme Court and high court judges – a new draft was sent to the collegium by the law ministry.