Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud on Thursday apprised Attorney General for India R Venkataramani that the State of Jharkhand has filed a contempt petition against the Central government for delay in the appointment of the Chief Justice of the Jharkhand High Court.
The CJI said that the matter was brought to his attention last night while he was leaving for home.
AG R Venkataramani said that he was not aware of the petition.
The conversation took place when the AG sought adjournment of a PIL seeking directions to the Union Government to act upon Collegium recommendations in a time-bound manner, listed for hearing on September 20, by a week.
The AG assured the Apex Court that the Centre’s decision on the pending Collegium resolutions regarding the appointment of Chief Justices of the High Courts would come soon.
The first law officer of the country contended that if the petition was listed for hearing after seven days, he would be in a position to come back with something concrete on the matter.
The Apex Court said that the list for tomorrow has already been published. However, it gave liberty to the AG to mention the adjournment tomorrow in presence of the petitioner.
On July 11, the Supreme Court collegium had made recommendations for the appointment of Chief Justices of eight High Courts. However, the resolutions remained pending with the Union Government.
During the hearing of the petition seeking judges’ appointments last week, the AG told the Court that he wanted to share some ‘sensitive’ information regarding the collegium recommendations.
The matter was then adjourned till September 20.
On September 17, the Collegium had modified three recommendations, which were made as per the July 11 resolution.