Gujarat Govt. Delays Judges Appointments: GHAA President Writes To CJI

The letter is against the Gujarat State Government's alleged "intentional and purposeful" delay in submitting its opinion on the candidates recommended by the high court Collegium. Considerably, the high court Collegium had recommended names of 15 Advocates and 5 judicial officers for appointment as judges to the Gujarat High Court and while the State forwarded its opinion to the Collegium on the said judicial officers, opinions with regards the Advocates was pending till date; an inordinate delay of four and a half months.

He also said that the process of appointment of judges to the Supreme Court as well as the high courts was a continuous process, involving constitutional dignitaries who were to act in a time bound manner however the government had "contemptuously" disregarded this time limit.

"Since the process is a continuous and an eternal one, all Constitutional dignitaries or functionaries lay down a procedure as to in what time phase each one would act. It is necessary to evolve such a formula so that in every case or in a case after a case, one may not have to remind the other and within the time frame, each Constitutional dignitary/functionary discharges its duties to achieve the end result.

… the respect to Memorandum of Procedure by the Constitutional dignitaries/functionaries is observed more in breach than in adherence," he said.

Oza also cited the case of appointment of Justice Qureshi as the Chief Justice of the Tripura High Court, modifying the earlier decision of the Collegium to elevate him as the Chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court and blamed the government for this sudden change of mind.

He expressed his concern over the Collegium's failure to resist the disrespect shown by the Government towards the Memorandum of Procedure and prescribed timelines and said that the Collegium should not wait for state's response and process the recommendation forwarded by the Collegium of the Gujarat High Court in terms of the second judges case.

"every time the collegiums concedes on the ground that if you do not concede in one or two cases, there will be a logjam, stalemate, deadlock, etc. I think the ratio laid down in the Second Judges case and third Judges case is merely on paper," he exclaimed.

Citing various instances where the GHAA had taken onto streets to ensure transparency in appointment of Judges, Oza disclosed that the Bar was highly agitated and wanted to go on two days strike, but did not only to welcome the new Chief Justice properly.

He thus urged the CJI to take apposite steps in this regard and to ignore the opinion of the State government and proceed to consider the proposals forwarded by the Colleium of the high court.

Considerably, the letter was written by Oza in his personal capacity and he has called for an extra ordinary general meeting of the Bar tomorrow, i.e., October 1, to get its post facto approval.