SC Collegium ‘defers’ some controversial names in appointment of judges for Allahabad HC

NEW DELHIi: Brother-in-law of a sitting Supreme Court judge, sons and nephews of a few other former judges of the SC and high court are among 16 advocates whose elevation as judges of the Allahabad high court has been ‘deferred’ by the apex court collegium based on concerns raised by the Centre recently through its own evaluation report.
The SC collegium, in its resolution of September 25, has recommended 17 advocates out of a list of 33 for their appointment as judges of the Allahabad HC, including some who are close relatives of former judges of SC and HC and against whom the Centre had also expressed reservations after background verifications.
The country’s largest HC has vacancies of 70 judges against a sanctioned strength of 160. The depleting strength is a matter of concern as it is also a reason behind increasing pendency of cases in the HC.
In February this year, the Allahabad HC collegium had recommended 33 advocates for their elevation as judges. However, when the Centre carried background checks, it found faults ranging from competence to credibility in at least 50% of the cases.
Sources said, the Centre, on its own scrutiny, had found only 12 candidates suitable for appointment as judges of the country’s largest HC out of a list of 33 advocates recommended by the HC collegium. The government’s evaluation also factored in complaints from members of the bar associations of the Allahabad HC raising issues of nepotism in appointments, overlooking competent candidates.
TOI had carried a series of stories highlighting how 11-12 out of 33 advocates recommended by the HC collegium were close relatives and associates of judges and the fact that it had caused resentment in the bar associations with claims that upper caste candidates dominated the list that had little representation from the backward classes and the SC/ST community.
However, the apex court collegium, in its resolution, negated some of these complaints and observed: “We have also taken note of the complaints placed in the file as also received in the office of chief justice of India making allegations against some of the recommendees. On examination, we do not find any prima facie substance in the complaints, which deserves to be ignored.”
The advocates recommended by the apex court collegium for appointments include, Prakash Padia, Alok Mathur, Pankaj Bhatia, Saurabh Lavania, Vivek Varma, Shamim Ahmed, Sanjay Kumar Singh, Piyush Agrawal, Ramendra Pratap Singh, Saurabh Shyam Shamshery, Jaspreet Singh, Rajeev Singh, Manju Rani Chauhan, Karunesh Singh Pawar, Yogendra Kumar Srivastava, Manish Mathur and Rohit Ranjan Agarwal.
In case of eight other candidates ‘deferred’ by the SC collegium, the resolution said their proposals “would be taken up for consideration by the collegium after some time”. These candidates include Shekhar Kumar Yadav, Deepak Verma, Gautam Chaudhary, Dinesh Pathak, Manish Kumar, Samit Gopal, Manish Goyal and Alok Kumar Yadav.