Orissa collegium cleared names despite objections

Twelve names for appointment as judges to the Orissa high court were recommended despite objections of two of the three HC collegium members to majority of the names.
The recommendations were among the last files cleared by outgoing chief justice Vineet Saran on May 15, who has since been appointed a Supreme Court judge.

Incidentally, the SC collegium first considered Saran’s name in May though eventually it was cleared in its July 16 meeting. The President later appointed him along with justices Indira Banerjee and KM Joseph.

The Orissa high court is the parent court of chief justice of India Dipak Misra, who is set to relinquish office in October.

Several senior judges ET spoke to confirmed that forwarding recommendations for judgeship despite two of the three members of a HC collegium expressing reservations has no precedents. The SC collegium is set to consider the names for appointment as judges to the Orissa high court.

“In such a scenario, recommendations could even be rendered invalid and should not have been forwarded to the Supreme Court,” said a senior judge on condition of anonymity.

Justices Indrajit Mahanty and Sanju Panda, senior judges and members of Orissa high court collegium dissented on majority of the names, highly placed sources told ET. Incidentally, justice Mahanty was recently exonerated by a SC appointed in-house inquiry committee in allegations of impropriety. The recommendations, sources told ET, also caused considerable resentment within the Orissa bar. It is believed that representations were also made to the Odisha government against the recommendations.

Inquiries revealed that on May 15 the HC collegium forwarded names of district judges Gautam Sharma, BP Rautray, Satyanarayan Mishra and Akshay Mishra and on May 10 it cleared names of advocates Bimbishah Das, Vishnu Prasad Pradhan, PK Harichandan, SK Das, V Narsingh, TK Sathpathy, RP Kar and KP Mishra. Justices Mahanty and Panda raised queries on some of the judges and advocates not fulfilling requisite seniority and income criteria.

An HC collegium consists of the chief justice and two senior-most judges who decide on recommending names for HC judgeship. After obtaining the opinion of the state government, the recommendations are forwarded to the Union law ministry, which after intelligence clearance reports forwards it to the SC collegium for consideration.