New Delhi, Feb 13 The Supreme Court Collegium, headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, on Tuesday recommended the appointment of 10 additional judges of the Punjab & Haryana High Court as permanent judges.
In October last year, the Collegium of the Punjab & Haryana Court unanimously forwarded its recommendation naming Justices Kuldeep Tiwari, Gurbir Singh, Deepak Gupta, Amarjot Bhatti, Ritu Tagore, Manisha Batra, Harpreet Kaur Jeewan, Sukhvinder Kaur, Sanjiv Berry, and Vikram Aggarwal.
The SC Collegium said that it has consulted other Judges of the Supreme Court who are conversant with the affairs of the Punjab & Haryana High Court in terms of the Memorandum of Procedure and they have concurrently opined that all the Additional Judges are fit and suitable for confirmation as permanent Judges.
It noted: "A Committee of two Judges of the Supreme Court constituted by the Chief Justice of India in terms of the Resolution dated 26 October 2017 of the Supreme Court Collegium has assessed the judgments of the above-named Additional Judges. The Committee has rated the quality of their judgments as very good/good."
It said that it has scrutinised the material placed on record including the opinion of the consultee-judges and the report of the Judgment Evaluation Committee, to assess the merit and suitability of these additional judges for appointment as permanent judges of the Punjab & Haryana High Court.
The SC Collegium said that these ten additional judges are fit and suitable for being appointed as permanent judges against the existing vacancies.
It noted that the Chief Ministers and the Governors for the States of Punjab and Haryana have not conveyed their views on the above recommendation.
"The Department of Justice has forwarded the above recommendation by invoking Para 14 of the Memorandum of Procedure which provides that if the comments of the constitutional authorities in the state are not received within the prescribed time-frame, it should be presumed by the Minister of Law and Justice that the Governor and the Chief Minister have nothing to add to the proposal and proceed accordingly," said the statement uploaded on the website of the apex court.
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