The Supreme Court Collegium’s reasons for rejecting names recommended by the High Court Collegium for judgeship cannot be made public as it will harm the interests of the candidates, the Delhi High Court ruled on Tuesday.
The judgement was passed by a division bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela while dismissing a plea moved by a man named Rakesh Kumar Gupta against an order of the High Court on May 27 that rejected his petition.
Gupta’s plea had sought for directions to the Supreme Court to publish the reasons for rejecting the High Court collegium’s recommendations.
He said in his petition that he moved court because his cases had been pending before the judiciary due to judges not being appointed.
The plea also said that in 2023, the Supreme Court Collegium rejected 35.29% of the recommendations made for elevating judges to High Courts. In comparison, the figure in 2021 was only 4.38%, according to the petition.
However, the division bench on Tuesday said that the Supreme Court Collegium deliberates and decides the elevation of judges based on the candidates’ private information.
“Such information, if made public, will have the effect of stifling the appointment process,” the court held.
The bench held that if Gupta believes that his matters have been delayed, he can file an application for early hearing in his matters on the judicial side.
The bench added that the petitioner’s understanding of Collegium’s rejection of candidates is misconceived as he failed to understand that appointment of a judge to the High Court or the Supreme Court is an “integrated, consultative and non-adversarial process” that cannot be challenged in court.
The appointments can only be challenged on the grounds of: seeking consultation with the named constitutional functionaries, lack of any condition of eligibility, or a transfer being made without the recommendation of the chief justice of India, the order said.
The judgement said that by the end of this year, the actual strength of the district judiciary is going to be at par with its sanctioned strength. “Consequently, the learned Single Judge has rightly held that the appellant has no locus to file the writ petition,” the bench said.
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