‘Shouldn’t Have Happened’: SC Judge on KM Joseph Elevation Row

Centre’s sending back Justice KM Joseph’s elevation recommendation is unprecedented, Justice Kurian Joseph said.

Justice Kurian Joseph. 

(Photo: PTI)

The government's decision to send back the Supreme Court collegium's recommendation for the elevation of Uttarakhand Chief Justice KM Joseph as a judge of the top court was unprecedented and needed more detailed discussions, Justice Kurian Joseph, a member of the collegium, said on Sunday, 6 May.

"Things that should not have happened had happened — that is the general feeling," the apex court judge told reporters on the sidelines of a function in Kochi, Kerala.

He was replying to a question on the Centre returning the recommendation of the collegium and asking it to reconsider Justice KM Joseph's elevation to the apex court.

“There is no precedent of the names recommended by the collegium being returned (by the Centre). So, more detailed discussions should take place (on the matter),” the Supreme Court judge said, without elaborating further.

The collegium had, on 2 May, deferred a decision on the issue of reconsidering its recommendation to elevate Justice KM Joseph, after it was sent back by the government last month.

The five-member collegium, comprising Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and justices J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph, met after the apex court's working hours, but no decision was taken as certain differences between the members could not be resolved.

The Centre, while returning the file of Justice KM Joseph to the collegium, had also mentioned that judges from various high courts had not found a place in the apex court.

Justice KM Joseph's name was recommended, along with that of then senior advocate, Indu Malhotra, on 10 January for their elevation as apex court judges.

The government had, on 26 April, declined to accept one of the two recommendations of the collegium and asked it to reconsider Justice Joseph's name.

Meanwhile, Malhotra was sworn in as a Supreme Court judge on 27 April.

In an unprecedented move, justices Chelameswar, Gogoi, Lokur and Joseph had called a press meet in January and highlighted certain issues in the judiciary.

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