New Delhi: After a strong warning from the Supreme Court, the Central Government yesterday approved the appointment of 5 new judges to the Supreme Court as per the recommendation of the collegium.
The total number of judges allowed in the Supreme Court including the Chief Justice is 34. However, at present the Supreme Court is functioning with 27 judges. Due to lack of judges, many cases could not be heard, in this case, the collegium headed by Chief Justice Chandra Chute recommended on December 13 to appoint 5 judges as Supreme Court judges. Thereafter, on January 31, the collegium recommended the appointment of Allahabad High Court Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal and Gujarat High Court Chief Justice Arvind Kumar as Supreme Court judges.
Problem for 2 months: But for the past 2 months, the central government has been dragging its feet without appointing the nominees to the Supreme Court. During the hearing a few days ago, Supreme Court Justices SK Kaul and AS Oka asked Attorney General R. Venkatramani about the status of the collegium recommendations.
The Attorney General who responded to this said that the order regarding the appointment of 5 judges will be issued in 2 days. The judges then said, “The central government’s delay in approving the recommendation of the collegium to appoint judges is very bad. Due to this, strict measures will have to be taken. This will not be good,” they warned.
Subsequently, the central government approved the appointment of Rajasthan High Court Chief Justice Pankaj Mittal, Patna High Court Chief Justice Ranjay Karol, Manipur High Court Chief Justice PV Sanjay Kumar, Patna High Court Justice Asanuddin Amanullah and Allahabad High Court Justice Manoj Mishra. President Drabupati Murmu approved it yesterday. After that, all 5 people will take office as judges.
