Adverse Intelligence Bureau report stalls selection of 3 HC judges

CHENNAI: In a first, the Supreme Court has recorded reasons for clearing six of the 10 district judges recommended for elevation as judges of Madras HC, and said it rejected three others due to adverse Intelligence Bureau report.

The three-judge collegium decision of the SC has been duly uploaded in the Supreme Court website, taking the transparency quotient of collegium proceedings to unprecedented levels.

The 75-judge Madras high court has 53 judges now. An HC collegium headed by the then Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul had recommended 21 names.

The three names found unsuitable for appointment are: V Vasudevan Nadathur, judicial member, I-T appellate tribunal, Kolkata; A Zakir Hussain, additional chief metropolitan magistrate, Egmore, Chennai; and K Arul, additional director, Tamil Nadu State Judicial Academy and officer on special duty, Madras HC.

The collegium said materials available about Zakir Hussain and Arul, including IB report, revealed they were not eligible for elevation to the HC.

In the case of Vasudevan, the SC collegium said it had rejected his name in 2013 after being recommended by collegium of Bombay HC. The same candidate was recommended for elevation by Calcutta high court in 2016, only to be rejected by the SC collegium again.