Troubled that govt keeps names of judges pending: Supreme Court

New Delhi: The Supreme Court said on Thursday its job is to enforce the law as it exists and it was "troubled" with the fact that many names recommended by the collegium for appointment as judges in the higher judiciary were kept pending by the Centre for long. The apex court said due to the prolonged process of appointment of judges and the delay in clearing the names, several potential judges are withdrawing their consent to be elevated to the bench, which has always been considered an "honour".

While hearing a matter about protracted delay by the Centre in clearing the names recommended by the collegium, a bench headed by Justice S K Kaul said, before the last hearing, 19 names were sent back to the collegium by the government. "How will this ping-pong battle settle?" asked the bench, also comprising Justices A S Oka and Vikram Nath. "What troubled us was the fact that there were many names pending for months and years and some reiterated cases," it said, adding, "Our job as judges of the Supreme Court is to enforce the law as it exists today".

The apex court noted Attorney General R Venkataramani submitted a status report before it on December 7 where a reference has been made to the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) for appointment of high court judges.

"Once the collegium in its wisdom or you may think lack of it has said that this is the basis on which it has worked the MoP.... there is no up and down which has to take place," Justice Kaul said. The bench said once the MoP issue is over, the government should not have referred to the views of the two judges of a seven-judge bench in a subsequent judgement to justify the delay. "Observation of two judges, can that upset the process of the constitutional mandate of five-judges which lays down the procedure of the MoP as the final view which is taken by the collegium," the bench asked.