More than six months after the Supreme Court collegium’s recommendation, the central government on Thursday notified the appointment of justice Sheel Nagu as the chief justice of the Punjab & Haryana high court - a development that highlights ongoing concerns over judicial appointments and administrative hold-ups.
Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal announced justice Nagu’s appointment on ‘X’ on Thursday evening. “In exercise of the powers conferred by clause (1) of Article 217 of the Constitution of India, the President is pleased to appoint Shri Justice Sheel Nagu, Judge of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh, to be the Chief Justice of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana with effect from the date he assumes charge of his office,” the government’s notification stated.
The decision came a day after HT spotlighted how justice Nagu was the only judge left out from a set of five names recommended by the Supreme Court collegium in December 2023.
The government’s notification of justice Nagu’s appointment arrived more than six months after the collegium, led by Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, recommended his elevation alongside four other judges. The other members of the collegium were justices Sanjiv Khanna and BR Gavai.
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{{/usCountry}}The delay in justice Nagu’s appointment meant that he was the only one from the group still awaiting confirmation, even as the other three judges -- Justices Arun Bhansali, Manindra Mohan Shrivastava, and Vijay Bishnoi -- were appointed as chief justices of the high courts of Allahabad, Rajasthan and Gauhati, respectively, in February. The fifth judge, justice BR Sarangi, was appointed as the chief justice of the Jharkhand high court just a day before justice Nagu’s notification, though justice Sarangi will have one of the shortest tenures at the helm owing to his impending retirement on July 20.
The delay in justice Nagu’s appointment underscores a pattern of selective processing by the Centre, which has resulted in prolonged vacancies in high courts. The Punjab & Haryana high court has been without a full-time chief justice since October 2023, while the Jharkhand high court had remained without a full-time chief justice since December 29 – two days after the collegium’s recommendation to appoint justice Sarangi.
Some other high courts such as Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Madras are also functioning with acting chiefs as the collegium is yet to recommend names to fill these posts.
The Memorandum of Procedure of appointment (MoP) for high court judges, established in 1999, guides the understanding between the Supreme Court collegium and the central government in matters of appointment and transfer of judges. However, the MoP does not bind the central government to a timeline for responding to the collegium’s recommendations, allowing the Centre to sit on these recommendations and push judges towards their retirement without a formal rejection.
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This practice was evident in the case of justice Sabina, who retired in April 2023 without assuming the chief justice’s office at the Himachal Pradesh high court due to the non-notification of the collegium’s recommendation. Another example is justice Jaswant Singh, who was appointed chief justice of the Orissa high court for only ten days before his retirement in February 2023 due to delays in processing his transfer.
The systemic challenges within the judicial appointment process, as highlighted by these delays, undermine the administration of high courts. Short tenures for chief justices, like justice Sarangi’s and justice Singh’s, render their impact minimal and necessitate fresh recommendations from the collegium, further complicating the judicial landscape.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasised the importance of timely appointments to ensure the effective functioning of the judiciary. In September 2023, the top court had decided to monitor the steps taken by the Centre in processing the recommendations made by the collegium for appointing and transferring judges in the constitutional courts, expressing anguish over delays.
Marking the long-running standoff between the judiciary and the executive on a timeline for appointment to constitutional courts, the hearing of this case between September and November 2023 saw the top court repeatedly reproaching the Centre for sitting over several collegium’ recommendations while also calling the latter’s selective decisions on appointment and transfer of judges “troublesome”. It had observed that the government must stop picking and choosing from a set of collegium’s recommendations, adding that the “business of selective appointments has become troublesome” when an “element of workable trust” was required between the executive and judiciary. The court had also said in October 2023 that the collegium’s recommendations could not remain in “limbo”, emphasising that instead of sitting on them indefinitely, the government must either notify those appointments or send them back citing specific objections. This matter has not come up for a hearing since December.