अल्लाहाबाद उच्च न्यायालय से 4 सुप्रीम कोर्ट न्यायाधीश, 7 उच्च न्यायालयों का अभाव

Columns4 Supreme Court judges hail from Allahabad High Court; 7 High Courts unrepresented

Can the Supreme Court of India, as it stands now, call itself a truly representative court?

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Earlier today, three judges were sworn in to the Bench of the Supreme Court of India - Justice Sunita Agarwal, Justice DK Upadhyaya and Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh.

With these appointments, the representation of the Allahabad High Court in Supreme Court has risen to 4.

However, seven High Courts do not have any representation at the top court.

The elevation of these three judges to the top court was recommended by the Supreme Court Collegium following a meeting held on September 28.

The Collegium statement revealed no details or reasoning behind these recommendations as has been the case with every statement released by the collegium under Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant.

While some CJIs of the past adopted a more transparent approach in an attempt to address the main criticism levelled against the collegium system, the opacity of the process, under CJI Kant, collegium statements have consistently been as bare as they can be.

Regardless of the approach of each CJI, it is almost always unclear as to what the Collegium takes into account when it makes a recommendation. Whether it is seniority, parent High Court representation, gender representation, diversity, length of tenure, or any other factor, we are often in the dark.

At the time of the recommendation, Justice Sunita Agarwal was the Chief Justice of the Gujarat High Court, Justice DK Upadhyaya was the Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court, and Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh was the Chief Justice of the Telangana High Court.

Justices Agarwal and Upadhyaya are both originally from the Allahabad High Court and the Jharkhand High Court is Justice Singh's parent High Court.

Justices Agarwal, Upadhyaya and Singh occupied the fourth, fifth and sixth positions respectively in the national seniority list of High Court judges.

The collegium's recommendation effectively superseded three other High Court Chief Justices - Justices Harish Tandon, Soumen Sen, and GS Sandhawalia. And supersession of judges in the matter of elevation to the Supreme Court always raises questions.

Allahabad High Court is already represented on the bench of the top court by two judges - Justices Vikram Nath and Manoj Misra.

Jharkhand High Court too has representation by way of Justice Shree Chandrasekhar.

If parent High Courts was a factor that weighed with the Collegium, it is unclear what other metric was used to balance it out.

As things stand, Allahabad High Court leads in parent High Court representation with four judges.

Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab & Haryana High Courts have three judges each on the top court's Bench.

Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi , Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madras and Rajasthan High Courts have two each.

Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Patna, Gauhati, Manipur, and Telangana High Courts each have one representative judge at the Supreme Court.

That leaves 7 High Courts with no representation on the Bench of the Supreme Court. These are:

- Himachal Pradesh High Court;

- Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Court;

- Meghalaya High Court;

- Orissa High Court;

- Sikkim High Court;

- Tripura High Court; and

- Uttarakhand High Court.

Parent High Court representation is important to ensure that major legal systems are not entirely absent from deliberations at the highest echelons of the Indian justice system.

Appointments to the Supreme Court are governed by Article 124 of the Constitution of India and the Memorandum of Procedure that grew out of the Judges' cases. According to the latter, before recommending any judge for elevation to the Supreme Court, the CJI would ascertain the views of the senior most judge in the Supreme Court, who hails from the recommended judge's parent High Court.

It follows then that a High Court with no representation among sitting Supreme Court judges is more likely to get overlooked in both future elevations as well as general administrative matters.

As the collegium and the Central government continues its delicate balancing act in judicial appointments, the question remains - can the Supreme Court of India, as it stands now, call itself a truly representative court?

Note: An earlier version of the story said nine High Courts are unrepresented. This was based on an incorrect reading of parent High Courts of Justices PV Sanjay Kumar and N Kotiswar Singh. The error has been corrected and is regretted.

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