Supreme Court Urged To List Plea Seeking Timeline For Centre To Decide Collegium Recommendations
The plea before Supreme Court argues that jurisprudence makes it emphatically clear that once the names of recommended has been reiterated by Collegium headed by CJI, the Government has no say.
The Supreme Court has been urged to list a petition filed by Centre for Public Interest Litigation seeking strict timelines for the Centre to act on the recommendations by the Collegium concerning appointment of judges.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan mentioned the matter before the Chief Justice of India for urgent listing, pointing out that the matter has not been listed since December 2023 after the retirement of Justice SK Kaul.
"After December 2023, it has not been unfortunately listed. It was supposed to be listed yesterday, but not listed. Still, there are problems remaining with the whole proces of judicial appointments, though some problems may have been sorted out," Bhushan told the bench.
"More or less likely to be solved, in any case we can list," CJI Surya Kant responded.
The petition of CPIL was being considered by a bench led by Justice SK Kaul, along with the contempt petition filed by Advocates Association of Bengaluru.
The petition filed by the Advocates Association Bengaluru has stated that "these inordinate delays in the appointment of Judges to the Hon’ble High Courts after the recommendation by the Collegium headed by Hon’ble the Chief Justice of India even after reiteration, is a direct contravention of the judgment dated 06.10.1993 passed by a Bench of Nine Hon’ble Judges of this Hon’ble Court in the Second Judges case (M/s PLR Projects Pvt. Ltd. v. Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd.)."
It is further submitted in the petition that the unreasonable delays in the matters of appointment after recommendations have been made by the Collegium headed by Hon’ble the Chief Justice of India, is detrimental to the recomendees.
In 2022-2023, a Justice SK Kaul led bench had passed a series of directions to Centre while criticising it for sitting over collegium recommendations, and for making selective appointments.
Mentioning date: September 8, 2026
Bench: CJI Kant, Justice Bagchi and Justice Mohana