New Delhi: Though Supreme Court judge Justice J Chelameswar is retiring on June 22, he is not ready to lie low on issues which he thinks are good for the judiciary. On Wednesday evening, he wrote a letter to Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra asking him to convene a meeting of the collegium to urgently forward to the Centre the name of Uttarakhand Chief Justice K M Joseph as the judge of the apex court.
On April 26, seeking reconsideration of the proposal, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had returned the collegium’s recommendation to elevate Justice K M Joseph to the Supreme Court. The Law Minister had argued that the proposal on Joseph’s elevation was not in accordance with the apex court’s parameters and there was adequate representation of Kerala in the higher judiciary. He had also questioned Justice Joseph’s seniority for elevation as a judge of the apex court.
However, Justice Chelameswar in his letter said that he was reiterating his decision for the elevation of Justice Joseph as the judge of the Supreme Court since there was no change in the circumstance that led the collegium to recommend his name to the government on January 10.
Earlier, Justice Kurian Joseph had also reportedly maintained that he was in favour of reiterating the recommendation of the collegium on the issue of Justice Joseph’s elevation to the apex court. In view of such pulls and pressures from judges, it has to be seen when the CJI fixes the date for the collegium meeting so that it could discuss the issue of returning of recommendation relating to Justice Joseph’s elevation.
