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Tamil Nadu advocates’ association plea to CJI

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi: The Tamil Nadu Advocates Association on Monday urged Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan to request Madras High Court Chief Justice A.K. Ganguly to have wider consultations in the matter of appointment of 14 persons as High Court judges.

List of 14 names

The association said, “The Chief Justice of the Madras High Court had recently sent a list of 14 names for appointment as Judges of the Madras High Court. It is well known that the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court and his immediate two senior-most Judges, who formed the collegium, are Judges who are functioning on transfer from their parent High Courts. Thus, the present list of names of 14 candidates have been finalised by the collegium of judges who may not be fully conversant with the affairs of the Madras High Court.”

The memorandum sent by association president S. Prabhakaran said, “It is no doubt true that in the matter of appointment of Judges of the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice of India is expected to ascertain the views of his colleagues in the Supreme Court who are likely to be conversant with the affairs of the concerned High Court by reason of the fact that such a Judge (whose view is ascertained by him) comes from the same High Court or otherwise.”

“In case if the two immediate senior judges are functioning on transfer, it would only mean the two senior most judges who have the Madras High Court as their parent High Court.

In the said circumstances, the requirement would be satisfied only when the views of the 4th and 5th Judge in seniority (whose parent High Court is Madras High Court) are also obtained by the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court.”

While welcoming the 25-point pro forma sent by the CJI to the prospective candidates, the memorandum expressed the hope that there would be strict scrutiny of names by adopting the pro forma.

The memorandum said, “We also request the CJI, the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court and the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, M. Karunanidhi to re-circulate the 14 names to the 4th and 5th senior most judges of the Madras High Court, whose parent High Court is Madras High Court for fresh consideration of these names.”

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