SC dismisses plea to restrain Gowri from taking oath as HC judge

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to entertain a plea seeking to restrain lawyer Lekshmana Chandra Victoria Gowri from taking oath as an additional judge of the Madras High Court, saying a "consultative process" had taken place before her name was recommended by the collegium for the appointment.

The apex court said Gowri has been appointed as an additional judge and if she is not true to the oath or does not discharge her duties in accordance with the oath, the collegium is entitled to take a view of that, while pointing out that there have been instances where people have not been made permanent judges. Minutes before the top court dismissed two pleas against Gowri's appointment, she was administered the oath of office as an additional judge by Madras High Court's Acting Chief Justice T Raja at around 10:48 am.

"We are not entertaining the writ petition. Reasons will follow," said a special bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and B R Gavai, which assembled at 10:25 am to hear the plea, five minutes before the scheduled time of the court. The two pleas, including one moved by three Madras High Court lawyers, opposed Gowri's appointment as an additional judge.

The bench told senior advocate Raju Ramachandran, who appeared in the matter for the petitioners, that there have been cases where people with political backgrounds have taken oath as judges of the Supreme Court and high courts. "Mr Ramachandran, there have been cases where people with political backgrounds have taken oath over here also, as judges of the Supreme Court and high courts," it said.

"You have placed certain utterances of 2018 etc. on record. We have seen it. The fact of the matter is, all these must have been placed before the collegium," the bench observed. It said when the collegium takes a decision, it also takes the opinion of the consultee judges, who are from that particular high court, and the petitioners cannot assume that those judges were not aware of all these things. "In any case, the candidate is being appointed as an additional judge. If the candidate is not true to the oath and if it is found that he or she has not discharged duties as per the oath, is the collegium not entitled to take a view of that?

And there have been instances where people have not been confirmed," the bench said during the hearing that went on for about 25 minutes. The bench told Ramachandran that there is a difference between eligibility and suitability. It said as far as suitability or merits are concerned, normally, even according to apex court judgments, courts should not go ahead, otherwise the whole process of appointment will become "unworkable".