press trust of india
New Delhi, Oct 6: In a bid to bring transparency into its proceedings, the Supreme Court Collegium has decided to upload on the apex court website the decisions taken by it, including on elevation, transfer and confirmation of judges.
The Collegium is headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra and has four of the senior-most judges of the apex court — Justices J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph.
“The decisions henceforth taken by the Collegium indicating reasons, shall be put on the website of Supreme Court, when recommendation(s) is/are sent to Government with regard to cases relating to initial elevation to High Court Bench, confirmation as permanent Judge(s) of High Court, elevation to the post of Chief Justice of High Court, transfer of High Court Chief Justices/Judges and elevation to Supreme Court, because on each occasion, the material which is considered by the Collegium is different.
“The Resolution is passed to ensure transparency and yet maintain confidentiality in the Collegium system,” the resolution, adopted October 3, has stated.
In the first uploaded resolution, information was provided on the appointment of Ashok Menon, Annie John and Narayana Pisharadi R as judges of the Kerala High Court.
The resolution gives details about the elevation of the three Judicial Officers as Kerala High Court judges whose names were recommended by the then Chief Justice of the High Court February 2, 2017 in consultation with two of his senior-most colleagues. These names had received concurrence of the Chief Minister and the Governor of Kerala.
Similarly, the Collegium recommended the appointment of S Ramathilagam, R Tharani, and P Rajamanickam as Judges of the Madras High Court.
Gandhi’s death probe plea hearing Oct 30
New Delhi: The Supreme Court Friday asked some searching questions on a plea seeking reopening of the probe into Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination and appointed senior advocate Amrender Sharan as amicus curiae to assist it in the matter. A bench comprising Justices S A Bobde and L Nageswara Rao was initially of the view that “nothing can be done in law” in the case which was decided long ago, but later told Sharan, a former additional solicitor general, that its observation was not binding on him to make an assessment of the matter. The bench, which posted the matter for further hearing on October 30, asked how evidence could be collected now to order further investigation into the case which had led to the conviction and execution of Nathuram Vinayak Godse and Narayan Apte on November 15, 1949.
