Starting the process of appointing the next Chief Justice of India (CJI), Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has written to the incumbent CJI Dipak Misra to recommend the name of his successor.
Mr. Prasad, who is on an official trip to Argentina and the U.S., is learnt to have written to Justice Misra before he left last week. Law Ministry sources said the letter had been delivered to the CJI’s office.
Justice Misra retires on October 2 and as per the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) governing the appointment of the CJI, the Law Minister asks the outgoing Chief Justice of India to recommend the next CJI.
The MOP states: “Appointment to the office of the Chief Justice of India should be of the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court considered fit to hold the office.”
Justice Ranjan Gogoi is the senior-most judge of the top court after the CJI.
However, his appointment as the next CJI has been a matter of debate after he joined the unprecedented press conference by the four senior most judges of the Supreme Court in January this year, where they questioned CJI Misra on “the allocation of important cases.”
Justices J. Chelameswar, Madan B. Lokur and Kurian Joseph were the other three judges in the press conference. The press conference against an incumbent CJI was not only a first in India’s judicial history but seen as an act of defiance. Subsequently, in the month of April, 71 MPs from seven Opposition parties came together to move a motion for removal of CJI Misra. Chairman of the Rajya Sabha M. Venkaiah Naidu, however, rejected the motion.
Centre non-committal
At the Law Ministry’s annual press conference, when Mr Prasad was asked if the government would follow laid-down conventions to appoint Justice Gogoi as the next CJI, he had said,“The question is imaginary...As far as the appointment of the Chief Justice of India is concerned, the convention is clear...the sitting Chief Justice names the senior-most judge (of the apex court) as his successor. When the name comes to us, we will discuss it.”
Under the MOP, on receiving the CJI’s recommendation, the Law Minister puts it before the Prime Minister who, in turn, advises the President of India on the appointment.
“Whenever there is any doubt about the fitness of the senior-most Judge to hold the office of the Chief Justice of India, consultation with other Judges...would be made for appointment of the next Chief Justice of India,” the document adds.