A bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and AS Oka also cautioned the government against passing judicial orders to ensure that recommendations made by the Collegium are cleared.
“Mr. Attorney General, I have ignored all press reports, but this has come from somebody high enough also with an interview… I am not saying anything else. If we have to, we will take a decision,” said Justice Kaul to Attorney General R Venkataramani who was representing the Central government.
“Please resolve this and don’t make us take a judicial decision in this regard,” the bench added.
Though the bench did not name anyone, it was evidently referring to the interview given by Law Minister Rijiu at the Times Now Summit.
In the interview, Rijiju had said that the Central government cannot be accused of ‘sitting over recommendations’ made by the Collegium and the judges’ body cannot expect the government to simply sign off on all the recommendations made by it.
The law minister had further stated that the government will respect the Collegium system till it is replaced by a better system but until then, the government will do its due diligence before acting on Collegium recommendations.
The Supreme Court on Monday underlined that while the government can convey its objections to the recommendations made by Collegium, it cannot simply hold back names without conveying any reservations.
“You cannot hold the names back without stating your reservations. I did not comment on the High Court names since 4 months had not elapsed, but these names are pending since 1.5 years. You are frustrating then method of appointment, we only issued notice to find out problem,” the bench said.
Source: Barandbench
