New Delhi: The vacation bench of the Supreme Court declined to entertain a public interest writ petition challenging the government’s decision to elevate Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar, the SC’s second senior-most judge, as the 44th Chief Justice of India.
Justices Ashok Bhushan and L. Nageswara Rao dismissed the PIL, filed by the National Lawyers Campaign for Judicial Transparen-cy and Reforms (NLCJTR), as infructuous since the President had already issued a notification appointing Justice Khehar as the next CJI. Justice Khehar will be sworn-in on January 4, 2017.
Advocate Matthew Nedumpara said that, instead of Justice Khehar, Justice J. Chelameswar, now the fourth senior-most judge, should be elevated as he had given a dissenting view when the National Judicial Appointments Commission law was struck down by a five-judge Constitution bench headed by Justice Khehar. The lawyers’ body said Justice Khehar, being a member of the collegium, had “usurped to himself the power of appointment of judges” by quashing the NJAC Act, which sought the abolition of the collegium system of judicial appointments.
