Will take call on Justice Kureshi’s appointment within week: Centre to SC

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 16

More than three months after the Supreme Court Collegium recommended appointment of Justice Akil A Kureshi as Chief Justice of Madhya Pradesh High Court, there is no clarity on his elevation.

The Centre on Friday told a three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi that it would take a call within a week on the Justice Kureshi’s elevation as Chief Justice of Madhya Pradesh High Court.

“I have instruction that within a week some decisions will be taken in this regard,” Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said, requesting the Bench that the matter should be taken up after a week as the government was examining the files sent by the Collegium.

Acting on Gujarat High Court Advocates’ Association’s plea, the top court had on August 2 asked the Centre to take a decision on Justice Kureshi by August 14 after Mehta said the Collegium’s recommendation was under consideration.

The Association accused the Centre of deliberately sitting over the Collegium recommendation to appoint Justice Kureshi of the Bombay High Court as Chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court.

The Centre cleared the appointment of Chief Justices of other high courts, the recommendation of which was made by the three-member SC Collegium before the summer vacation but Justice Kureshi’s matter hangs fire.

On June 7, it had issued a notification appointing Justice Ravi Shanker Jha as Acting Chief Justice of Madhya Pradesh High Court, the petitioner pointed out. Appointment of Justice Kureshi as Chief Justice in Madhya Pradesh High Court was recommended by the Collegium on May 10.

The Collegium’s resolution had stated that “Justice A A Kureshi is the senior-most Judge from Gujarat High Court and at present is functioning, on transfer, in the Bombay High Court”.

The association contended that the reluctance of the Centre to appoint Justice Kureshi as Chief Justice of Madhya Pradesh is against the procedure laid down in the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) and amounts to violation of Articles 14 and 217 of the Constitution.

It said the inaction on the part of the Centre is an attack on the independence of the judiciary and diminishes the primacy of the judiciary in the matters of appointment and transfer of judges to the High Courts and the Supreme Court.