SC collegium decides to defer elevation of Justice Joseph to apex court

New Delhi: The collegium of five most-senior judges of the Supreme Court on Wednesday decided to defer its earlier recommendation to elevate Uttrakhand High Court’s Justice Kuttiyil Mathew Joseph to the top court, a week after the Centre rejected his name.

Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices Jasti Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan Lokur and Kurian Joseph are the members of the collegium.

 The collegium's announced the deferrment decision after a 45-50 minute meeting.

The collegium had also considered names of judges from three other high courts in view of what the court called, was the "concept of fair representation".

But a decision on the appointments had been deferred, a resolution by the Supreme Court said after the meeting of the collegium.

One of the grounds cited by the government to reject Uttarakhand Chief Justice KM Joseph's elevation was that this would increase the number of judges from the Kerala High Court to two though there were many high courts which did not have any representation in the top court's bench.

The collegium's decision to "consider the names of judges from Calcutta, Rajasthan and Telangana and Andhra Pradesh High Courts" for elevation to the Supreme Court is seen as an effort to address the government's concern.