judicial appointments: Supreme Court seeks AG’s aid on timeframe to notify Collegium proposals

New Delhi, August 19

As the Centre and the Supreme Court often get deadlocked on certain judicial appointments, the Supreme Court has sought the assistance of Attorney General R Venkataramani in deciding a PIL seeking to set a timeframe to notify the Collegium’s recommendations for the appointment of judges.

“A copy of the petition be served on the office of the Attorney General of India. We request the Attorney General to assist the court,” a Bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud said on Friday and posted it for hearing on September 8.

The government and the Supreme Court Collegium have been at loggerheads in recent times over judicial appointments with the former sitting over recommendations of the latter.

Petitioner advocate Harsh Vibhore Singhal has sought a direction to plug the ‘zone of twilight’ of there being no time for notifying the collegium’s recommendations for appointment of judges to the higher judiciary.

If any name was not objected to or the appointments were not notified by the end of such a fixed time period, then appointments of such judges must be taken as notified, Singhal submitted.