Last week, Supreme Court has pronounced its Judgment over appointment of Judicial Officers as High Court Judges. It not only, merely dismissed the Petition filed by Eight Judicial Officers of Tamil Nadu Courts but also answered substantial question of law with regard to such appointment.

The case of those 8 Judicial Officers are; they have been neglected for the posts of High Court Judges in contrast, juniors who are practising advocates and who have less years of Court practice compared to them were selected for the posts of High Court Judges.

And they placed their arguments that their Advocate experience in Court Practice should be clubbed together with that of their Judicial Officers practice and in such a way each of them are having more than 16 years of Court practice and they should be a preferential candidates for the posts of Judges vis-à-vis against their counterpart Advocates. They have chosen to place their arguments under Article 217 and Article 14 of The Constitution of India.

The Supreme Court in its detailed evaluation of arguments placed before it by the Petitioners and after detailed analysis of both Articles, it concluded that; The Petitioners can’t claim remedy under Article 217 and their experience as Judicial Officer cannot be joined together with their Court Practice as Advocate.

It further said, there are two different queues exist in the appointment of Judges to the High Court, one is an Appointment of Advocate who have more than 10 years of Court Practice and another one is Judicial Officers who comes under recruitment process. The Advocate who is into Court Practice are being considered for the post of High Court Judges by the Collegium based on certain parameters and those Advocates are filled for 75% of the vacant seat while 25% posts are offered to Judicial Officers.

It is well known fact that the High Court Judges posts are filled directly as well as from taking a sizeable Judicial Officers who are not less than District Court Judges. The anomalies seen by the Judicial Officers in the appointment of Advocates directly as High Court Judges was not in good taste and they should have avoided it.

However, appointment of High Court Judges and the Judges to the Supreme Court are required to be done in a more transparent way as it is now practiced by the Collegium at both levels. We are for separation of Judiciary from the interference and intervention of Executives and any appointment of Judges must be done by the Independent Judges Body without getting approval of seal from the Legislatures or Executives and both should be done away with.