Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai)

'WHATEVER IS HAPPENING IS NOT GOOD'

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The case of justice Maheshwari is a curious one. Six weeks back, when the collegium was considerin­g a judge from Rajasthan for elevation, they found justice Maheshwari not suitable... Now suddenly, after six weeks, he is found to be deserving

Whatever is happening is not good for the institutio­n. I believe that if there is a controvers­y it should be sorted out by wider consultati­ons “[It is] very surprising that the names were changed without any rhyme or reason. What exactly was the extraordin­ary reason for which the collegium changed the names within a month of the last meeting?” dented press conference where they disagreed with then-cji Dipak Misra’s style of functionin­g, said he was assigning important cases to junior judges, and suggested a “consultati­on-led process” among the top five judges and a set of guidelines for deciding on the case roster and work allocation.

Three of those judges — justices J Chelameswa­r, Kurian It’s a sad thing that such a thing has happened in Supreme Court. Seniority as a principle is generally not violated for appointmen­ts. There are some cases where the senior judge may not be suitable for appointmen­t, but there is a way for dealing with such situations. When faced with such a situation, I let the senior judge retire before elevating the junior judge

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Joseph and Madan Lokur — have retired since, as has Misra. The fourth, justice Ranjan Gogoi, is the present CJI. On December 12, the collegium comprising justices Gogoi, Lokur, AK Sikri, SA Bobde and NV Ramana decided to elevate justice Pradeep Nandrajog, chief justice of the Rajasthan high court, and justice Rajendra Menon, chief justice of the Delhi high court. On January 10, a reconstitu­ted collegium, with justice Arun Mishra replacing retired justice Lokur, instead picked Karnataka high court chief justice Maheshwari and justice Khanna of the Delhi high court. To be sure, the first decision wasn’t displayed on the court’s website as such decisions are. Nor was it sent to the law ministry. NEWDELHI: The panel led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi (or his nominee) and leader of the largest opposition party in the Lok Sabha, Mallikarju­n Kharge, as its two other members, will meet on January 24 to finalise the name of the next chief of the Central Bureau of Investigat­ion, people familiar with the matter said on condition of anonymity.

After Alok Verma’s contentiou­s ouster from CBI on January 10, the agency has been working under interim director M Nageswara Rao. Rao is an additional director in the agency and has been appointed as the interim director till the government selects a regular director. “The government initially proposed that the meeting be held on January 21, but after consultati­ons between members, finalised January 24 as the date for the meeting to select the new CBI director,” said one of the people cited above, a government official.

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