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The Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms, an NGO which works extensively for judicial transparency, has issued a statement calling upon the Supreme Court to restart judicial hearings on the unexplained delay and segregation of names recommended by the Supreme Court Collegium for High Court judgeships.
The immediate trigger has been the withdrawal of consent to judgeships by two advocates, Swetashree Majumder, and Rajesh Datar.
Ms. Majumder’s name had been recommended for the Delhi High Court Bench a year ago by the Collegium. The government was sitting on the name without assigning her reasons. Fed up, the lawyer has bowed out.
More recently, Mr. Datar found that his name was segregated by the government. Those who were his juniors in the legal profession were appointed as additional judges of the Bombay High Court after the government inexplicably decided to sit on his name, which was proposed by the apex court Collegium months ago.
The NGO, which has former apex court judges, academicians, writer Arundhati Roy, advocate Kamini Jaiswal, and journalists as patrons, said the very same had happened to senior advocate Aditya Sondhi in 2022.
Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul (now retired), while hearing petitions highlighting the chronic delays on the part of the government to clear names recommended by the Collegium, had said the inaction was leading to the judiciary losing future talent, with the public and litigants ultimately having to suffer.
The statement asked what the point of rigorous interviews and background checks by the Supreme Court Collegium of candidates shortlisted for High Court judgeships was when the government would eventually delay their appointments for unknown reasons or “pick and choose” names.
“While we appreciate the Supreme Court Collegium making greater efforts to scrutinise candidates for judgeship by holding interviews with candidates, we believe this effort will come to nought if the Union is allowed to simply discard qualified and suitable nominees for no good reason,” the statement said.
It said a case titled Centre for Public Interest Litigation vs Union of India, seeking a mandamus from the government for timely judicial appointments and challenging the unilateral segregation of Collegium recommendations by the Centre, was pending in the apex court since 2018. The last date of hearing was on February 22, 2019.
“We therefore call upon the Supreme Court to take up the issue of judicial appointments once again on the judicial side and demand explanations from the Union government on the circumstances under which Ms. Majumder and Mr. Datar’s appointments were stymied… Nothing less than the future of an independent judiciary depends upon it,” the statement said.
Published – July 08, 2025 11:03 pm IST
