The Supreme Court Collegium on Friday, 11 May reportedly agreed to reiterate Justice K M Joseph's name for elevation as apex court judge, but decided to send it back together with some other names for appointment.
The other names will reportedly be decided on 16 May in another meeting.
The Collegium met earlier in the day to decide whether to resend the nomination of Uttarakhand Chief Justice KM Joseph for appointment as judge of the top court. The Centre had earlier returned his nomination to the SC citing his ‘seniority’ as a reason.
The meeting was called a day after Justice Jasti Chelameswar, the second senior-most judge of the Supreme Court, wrote to Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra to convene a meeting of the Collegium for the same.
On 26 April, the Centre had returned the Collegium's proposal to elevate Justice Joseph to the apex court, saying the recommendation was not in accordance with the top court's parameters and there was an adequate representation of Kerala in the higher judiciary from where he hails.
In his letter sent to the CJI late on Thursday, 9 May, Justice Chelameswar conveyed that he was reiterating his decision for the elevation of Justice Joseph as a judge of the top court since there was no change in the circumstance that had led the Collegium to recommend his name to the government on 10 January, PTI quoted an apex court official as saying.
It is also learnt that Justice Chelameswar, who retires on 22 June, has responded to all the points raised in the communication to the CJI by Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad expressing reservations on the elevation of Justice Joseph, PTI reported.
Justice Kurian Joseph, during his visit to Kerala last week, had also reportedly made it clear that he was in favour of reiterating the name of the Uttarakhand Chief Justice for the apex court.
(With inputs from PTI)
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