Judicial Appointments: Supreme Court Collegium sends back names of seven lawyers

The Supreme Court Collegium has remitted the names of seven lawyers from three different High Courts to the Chief Justices.

The three High Courts are Calcutta, Gujarat and Bombay. The resolutions to that effect were passed on August 8.

Calcutta High Court

Dr. Sutanu Kumar Patra

He was one of the seven Advocates whose names were recommended by the Collegium of the Calcutta High Court and approved by the Supreme Court Collegium on March 26, 2018.

As per the Collegium resolution, the file of Dr. Patra was referred back to the Collegium by the Centre for reconsideration.

The Collegium has accepted the same and decided to remit the file to the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court.

The resolution, however, does not specify the reasons given by the Centre for sending the file back.

Sabyasachi Chaudhury and Sakya Sen

These names were cleared by the Supreme Court Collegium on December 4, 2017

They were referred back to the SC Collegium by the Centre for reconsideration.

The Collegium has now decided to remit their names back to the Chief Justice of High Court since both of them have not completed 45 years of age as required by the Memorandum of Procedure.

Gujarat High Court

Names of three advocates have been remitted back to the Chief Justice of Gujarat High Court. This has been done by the Supreme Court Collegium without sending it to the Centre. The three advocates are:

• Mehul Sharadbhai Shah
• Amar Dhirajlal Mithani
• Udayan Pankajkumar Vyas

The above recommendations were made on May 5, 2017 by the Chief Justice of the Gujarat High Court in consultation with his two senior-most colleagues and was received by the Supreme Court on July 16, 2018.

Since there is no Judge in the Supreme Court conversant with the affairs of the Gujarat High Court to ascertain the suitability of the above persons, the Supreme Court Collegium scrutinized the file based on the material on record.

With respect to Mehul Sharadbhai Shah, the Collegium has remitted the same back to the Chief Justice without recording any reason for the same.

As regards Amar Dhirajlal Mithani and Udayan Pankajkumar Vyas, the Collegium has concluded that they do not qualify the prescribed professional income criterion. Having regard to this and other relevant factors, the Collegium has remitted their names back to the Chief Justice.

Bombay High Court

The name of advocate Chetan S Kapadia has been remitted back to the Chief Justice of Bombay High Court.

The above proposal was cleared by the Supreme Court Collegium on April 19, 2018.

It was referred back to the Chief Justice of India for reconsideration in view of the fresh inputs placed in the file.

The Collegium has accepted the same and chosen to remit the file back to the Chief Justice of Bombay High Court.

Read the Collegium resolutions below.