Appointment of Chief Justice of Manipur HC will be notified soon: Centre to SC

New Delhi [India], October 9 (ANI): The Centre on Monday informed the Supreme Court that the appointment of the Chief Justice of Manipur High Court will be notified soon.

Attorney General R Venkatramani, appearing for Centre, apprised the bench of justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Sudhanshu Dhulia about the development. He submitted that the file of the appointment of Chief Justice of a High Court has been cleared, and notification will be issued shortly.

The appointment of the Chief Justice of the High Court of Manipur, a sensitive state, was pending for a considerable time. In July, the Supreme Court collegium proposed the name of Delhi High Court judge, Justice Justice Siddharth Mridul, for appointment as Chief Justice of the Manipur High Court.

The top court clarified that it should be done by the next date of hearing and listed the matter relating to judicial appointment for October 20 for further hearing.

The court also said that processes in view of judgments dealing with the mode of appointment and time period should be followed by the government and such things should not require any monitoring by this court.

The court also noted that positive development in the large no of recommendations from high courts is pending with the ministry, which has been forwarded to the SC collegium. Collegium requires consultee judges’ opinions to be taken and processing to be done, which is underway and will be done at the earliest, the court said.

The top court also noted the issue of the transfer of 26 judges of high courts, in which files of few have been cleared and notification will be issued sooner and the rest is under process.

The court was dealing with the petition against the Centre for keeping the Collegium-recommended names of judges for their appointment in the various High courts and Supreme Court pending. One of the petitions was filed by the Advocates Association of Bengaluru seeking to initiate contempt action against the Union Ministry of Law and Justice for not following the timeline for clearing judicial appointments recommended by the collegium. Along with the Advocates Association of Bengaluru, the court was also dealing with an NGO Common Cause petition raising the issue of delay in judicial appointments.

In the last hearing, the Supreme Court reiterated its concern over delay in the appointment of judges in various High Courts. The Supreme Court had earlier also expressed its concern on the issue of keeping the list of the transfers of judges of the high courts pending with the Centre.