Centre asks Supreme Court to reconsider its recommendation of two HC judges for elevation 

The Supreme Court of India.

New Delhi: After an April 12 recommendation by the Supreme Court’s collegium of elevating two judges to the apex court, Centre has asked the Supreme Court to reconsider the names of Jharkhand high court Chief Justice Aniruddha Bose and Gauhati high court Chief Justice AS Bopanna for appointment.

Citing two reasons for its decision, the Centre said, “There were more senior judges who deserved elevation and the Kerala high court was already adequately represented in the Supreme Court. Secondly, the opposition claimed that the judge was being targeted for ruling against imposition of president’s rule in Uttarakhand three years ago.”

The five-member collegium of CJI Ranjan Gogoi, Justices SA Bobde, NV Ramana, Arun Mishra and RF Nariman had informally met, on Tuesday, to examine the Centre's objections to the collegium's April 12 recommendation to appoint Justices Bose (parent HC Calcutta) and Bopanna (parent HC Karnataka) as SC judges.

The collegium’s recommendation on April 12 had said, “While recommending names of Justice Bose and Justice Bopanna, the collegium has taken into consideration, apart from their merit and integrity, combined seniority on all-India basis of chief justices and senior judges of HCs. The collegium has kept in mind desirability of giving due representation on the bench of SC, as far as possible, to all HCs.”

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