Ex-judge questions collegium’s elevation decision

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 15

Amid controversy over Supreme Court collegium’s decision to recommend Karnataka HC Chief Justice Dinesh Maheshwari and Delhi HC Judge Sanjiv Khanna to the SC, former Delhi High Court Judge Kailash Gambhir has written to President Ram Nath Kovind questioning supersession of several judges.

A five-member collegium headed by CJI Ranjan Gogoi had on January 10 recommended the elevation of Justice Maheshwari and Justice Khanna to the SC. Justice Khanna is the nephew of legendary Justice HR Khanna, who is known for his dissenting verdict in the habeas corpus case during the Emergency. Justice HR Khanna had resigned after being superseded by Justice HM Beg’s appointment as CJI.

He said the talk in the legal corridors was that Justice Sanjiv Khanna’s elevation has been recommended with the intention to “pay respect to the legacy left by his great uncle”.

He called the collegium’s decision “appalling”, “outrageous” and “earth shattering”. “I humbly urge your Excellency to kindly ponder over as the head of our largest democracy in the world with a robust judiciary and having remained a part of the legal fraternity, and see yourself that the way the present collegium of five eminent senior Judges have superseded almost 32 Judges, how will the democracy and independency of judiciary in the country survive,” he wrote in his letter dated January 14.

On Justice Maheshwari’s elevation, he pointed out that he was superseded by the collegium a-month-and-a-half ago.

‘Black day in judiciary’

It will be another black day when there will be supersession of 32 judges who are senior to Justice Sanjiv Khanna and many of them may be no less meritorious and men of integrity than him. The legacy that we all are so proud of and which the collegium so scrupulously wants to preserve will become nothing but an unfortunate irony. Kailash Gambhir, Delhi HC ex-judge