Cannot bind President to timeline on appointments of judges: Centre

Binding the President of India to a timeline in matters of judicial appointments is "not appropriate", the Centre told Supreme Court on Wednesday, flagging several concerns over engaging the services of retired judges to tackle massive pendency of cases across the high courts of the country.

- Utkarsh Anand

In a status report submitted to a bench headed by justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, the central government pointed out that the process of appointing ad hoc judges in high courts, as per Supreme Court's April 2021 judgment, will require inclusions in the Memorandum of Procedure (MOP)--the document that guides the appointment of judges to the constitutional courts.

In August 2021, the government said, Union law minister Kiren Rijiju wrote to the Chief Justice of India soliciting the latter's opinion on the draft guidelines for the appointment of ad hoc judges under Article 224A of the Constitution. But the CJT's opinion, based on the unanimous view of the Supreme Court collegium, is yet to be received, said the Centre.

However, the draft guidelines, seen by HT, marks some crucial departures from the April 2021 judgment of the top court, potentially setting the stage for yet another confrontation between the executive and the judiciary, which has recently been at loggerheads over the appointment of judges through the collegium system. At several occasions since November, Rijiju has relentlessly reproached the collegium system, calling it "opaque", "alien to the Constitution" and the only system in the world where judges appoint people who are known to them.