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New Delhi: The Supreme Court Collegium reiterated the name of advocate Amitesh Banerjee, son of former Supreme Court judge Justice UC Banerjee, for promotion as a judge of the Calcutta High Court.
Amitesh is among the nine names that have been reiterated by the high-powered appointments panel led by Chief Justice of India NV Ramana overcoming the government’s objections to elevation as judges in four high courts.
His father Justice Banerjee had headed the inquiry panel set up by the then UPA government in 2004 to rule out any wrongdoing in the case. 2002 Sabarmati Express fire In Godhra, which gave rise to violent communal riots in Gujarat.
59 died due to fire car valet were returning from Ayodhya and many others were injured.
The panel’s report was seen as a setback for the Gujarat government, which was then led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as it opposed the official version that the fire was deliberately planned to damage the yatra. car valet. Instead, the report described the fire as accidental.
However, the findings were declared invalid by the Gujarat High Court, which struck down its findings and treated the commission’s constitution as “a colorful exercise of power with malicious intent”.
appointment to high courts
The SC Collegium recommended a total of 68 names for promotion to the 12 High Courts, and 44 of them are from the Bar while 24 are from the judicial service.
Ten candidates are women lawyers and one of them is from the Scheduled Tribes. If approved, she would be the first such appointment in the higher judiciary.
As previously reported By ThePrint, the central government had returned files containing 14 names recommended by the SC collegium for five different high courts.
Two of them were sent back for the second time, disregarding the fact that they were repeated by the collegium. According to the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP), it is binding on the government to repeat any name of the collegium.
These recommendations were pending with the government for more than a year, in some cases nearly 24 months.
According to a resolution uploaded on the apex court’s website on Friday night, four names were approved for the Calcutta High Court, including Amitesh, two for Jammu and Kashmir and one for Rajasthan and two for Karnataka.
While there were five names in the list sent back to the Calcutta HC, the collegium has repeated only four. The resolution does not mention the decision of the collegium regarding the fifth name.
These five names were cleared by the SC Collegium in July 2019. He was selected out of nine who were recommended by the Calcutta HC Collegium on 17 December 2018. The SC Collegium had then selected only five and referred the others to the High Court.
One of the two names for Karnataka HC has been repeated for the second time, reflecting the firm approach being adopted by the collegium. This candidate was initially recommended in October 2019 and was repeated in March this year.
Two names, including a woman lawyer, for the Jammu and Kashmir HC were cleared for promotion by the state HC in March 2019.
However, the apex court collegium had approved the name of the woman advocate only in October 2019, while the other was forwarded in March this year after the appointment panel received additional inputs about the legal practice of the advocate.
The single name for the Rajasthan High Court was reiterated in two recommendations sent by the collegium in July 2019. While the government had notified the appointment of one in November 2019, it opted to send back the other.
The collegium is yet to decide on four names attached to the Delhi High Court and one for Kerala.
Read also: 9 new judges of Supreme Court – 3 women, 1 OBC, 1 SC and 9 from different states
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