Supreme Court Collegium Breaks Traditions, Interacts With To-Be High Court Judges

New Delhi:  In an apparent effort to ward off criticism of opaqueness, the Supreme Court collegium has broken the tradition by interacting with as many as 12 lawyers and trial court judges who were recommended for appointment as permanent judges in the Calcutta and Madhya Pradesh High Courts.

The top court collegium, comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and two senior-most judges justices J Chelameswar and Ranjan Gogoi, created a history of sorts by conducting an informal interview of the persons who were shortlisted by the respective High Court collegiums.

The Supreme Court collegium considered various materials, including the views of the state Chief Ministers as forwarded by their respective Governors and the Intelligence Bureau reports.

"Apart from this, we invited all the recommendees with a view to have an interaction with them," the collegium noted in its decision.

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For the Calcutta High Court, the collegium has recommended the names of five advocates -- Biswajit Basu, Amrita Sinha, Dr Sutanu Kumar Patra, Abhijit Gangopadhyay and Jay Sengupta.

It has recommended the names of advocate Sanjay Dwivedi, and four judicial officers -- Akhil Kumar Shrivastava, Brij Kishore Shrivastava, Rajendra Kumar Shrivastava and Mohd Fahim Anwar, for appointment as permanent judges in the Madhya Pradesh High Court.