Collegium stands its ground to make Ramendra Jain J permanent judge of Punjab & Haryana HC

In a major embarrassment to the Central government, the Supreme Court Collegium has reiterated its recommendation to make Justice Ramendra Jain a permanent judge of the Punjab & Haryana High Court.

Justice Jain was initially recommended to be appointed as a permanent judge of the Punjab & Haryana High Court on March 26 this year. However, the Centre has failed to heed the Collegium’s recommendation thus far.

And two days before his term as an additional judge expires, the Collegium has stuck to its guns, resolving that the move be made “most expeditiously”.

The reason given by the Union Law Ministry’s Department of Justice (DoJ) for sending back the file was that Justice Jain was due to be transferred to the Karnataka High Court. In doing so, the DoJ failed to take into consideration that in July 2017, the Collegium had recorded special reasons for retaining Jain J. at the Punjab & Haryana High Court. The minutes of that meeting state,

“As Mr. Justice Ramendra Jain has been performing well in the Punjab & Haryana High Court and no information warranting his transfer has come to our notice, the Collegium is of the considered view that he be allowed to continue to function in that High Court, keeping in view the depleted Judge-strength of the High Court. The Collegium resolves to recommend accordingly.”

In the resolution passed today, the Collegium comprising Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Justices Jasti Chelameswar and Ranjan Gogoi states,

“We do not see any good ground for linking the proposal of transfer of Mr. Justice Ramendra Jain with the proposal for his appointment as Permanent Judge and even for revisiting, at this crucial juncture, the above-referred decision dated 26th March, 2018 for his appointment as Permanent Judge of the Punjab & Haryana High Court.”

After going through the Centre’s observations on the Collegium’s proposal, it was resolved,

“The Collegium, on reconsideration, resolves to reiterate its recommendation for appointment of Mr. Justice Ramendra Jain as Permanent Judge of Punjab & Haryana High Court, especially when no specific reason except the issue of his transfer for seeking reconsideration has been recorded in the file.”

The Collegium has urged the government authorities to process its recommendation most expeditiously, given the fact that Justice Jain’s term ends on April 19.

The Centre has been loath to pass files related to several appointments to the High Courts as well as the Supreme Court. It will be interesting to see if the Collegium makes a similar reiteration with respect to its recommendation to elevate Justice KM Joseph and Senior Advocate Indu Malhotra to the Supreme Court, which the government has failed to process for the last three months.

Read the resolution:

Read the resolution dated March 26: