The Centre clears the elevation of Justice K M Joseph to Supreme Court
The impasse over the elevation of Justice K M Joseph has finally come to an end with the Centre consenting on his elevation to the Supreme Court. The deadlock over Justice KM Joseph’s elevation had started seven months ago when the Law Ministry returned his name recommended the five-judge bench collegium.
People who had protested against this move of government back then had argued that the reasons cited the Centre for returning his name—that his elevation was against the balanced regional proportion and the lack of seniority among the Chief Justices of various High Courts— were not convincing.
According to them the real reason behind the Centre’s stall over his elevation was the role played the Justice K M Joseph as a Chief Justice of Uttarakhand High Court in a judgement dating back to 2016 that quashed the President’s rule imposed the Centre upon Uttarakhand, a charge Centre vehemently denies.
Justice K M Joseph’s name was recommended the collegium earlier on January 10 this year. And when his name was sent to the Centre for the recommendation, Centre had rejected his name citing few reasons as mentioned earlier.
Centre’s refusal to elevate Justice Joseph’s name to Supreme Court had brought the glaring difference between the executive and judiciary to the fore making it an issue of public debate. Opposition parties and many legal experts had criticized that move of the government saying that returning the name of Justice KM Joseph Centre was trying to take the revenge from Joseph and weaken the judiciary.
However, the Centre had refuted all such allegation. But, it had definitely attracted a lot of ire of the people who deemed the government’s role in that particular incident as a deliberate attempt to prevent the elevation of those judges who had ruled against the BJP government in the past.
Currently, I am pursuing B.A(H) Political science from Satyawati College, Delhi University.
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