Eight serving judicial officers in the cadre of District Judge have moved the Supreme Court claiming that since 2017 the Madras High Court collegium continued to ignore their names, as well as that of six others belonging to their batch, and instead recommended their “juniors” for elevation as judges of the High Court.
Those who filed the joint writ petition before the apex court, alleging “en masse omission,” included the Madras High Court’s Registrar (Vigilance) R. Poornima, Tamil Nadu State Legal Services Authority (TNSLSA) Member Secretary K. Rajasekar and the Principal Judge of the Family Courts in Chennai A.K.A. Rahmaan.
The other five writ petitioners were R. Sakthivel, A. Kanthakumar, A. Nazeema Banu, M.D. Sumathi and M. Suresh Viswanath, who were serving as Principal District Judges in Coimbatore, Dharmapuri, Madurai, Ariyalur and Thoothukudi districts respectively. All the eight were direct appointees to the post of District Judge in February 2011.
The first Bench comprising Chief Justice of India Sharad Arvind Bobde and Justices B.R. Gavai and Surya Kant has ordered notices on their petition to the Centre, the Secretary General of the Supreme Court, the Madras High Court, the State government and 18 district judges who were termed to be “juniors” but had been recommended for elevation.
Notices have also been ordered to the petitioners’ six batchmates who had not chosen to file the case but had been made as respondents to the writ petition. The six included Madras High Court’s Registrar General C. Kumarappan, Registrar (Judicial) M. Jothiraman and Namakkal Principal District Judge K.H. Elavazhagan.
According to the petitioners, a majority of them had completed 10 years of practice as lawyers before being recruited as District Judges on February 18, 2011. In 2017, they had also completed six years of service in the district judiciary. However, when it came to elevation as High Court judges, the collegium did not consider them.
On the other hand, the collegium chose to recommend names of those who had joined service as Judicial Magistrates and got promoted as District Judges only after the appointment of the writ petitioners. Aggrieved over such practice, the petitioners had made a representation to the High Court collegium on November 21, 2018.
“However, the petitioners were orally informed that their representation was rejected on the ground that they have not completed 10 years of judicial service,” the pleadings filed by them before the Supreme Court read. Taking exception to such an explanation, they cited instances in the past of judicial officers with less than 10 years of experience having been elevated.
“The decision of the honourable High Court collegium in not considering the petitioners for being appointed as judges of the honourable High Court is based on an incorrect interpretation of Article 217(2) of the Constitution and it is violative of Article 217 itself resulting in arbitrariness and it thereby violative of Article 14 (right to equality),” the petitioners added.
