The Supreme Court collegium has for the second time reiterated the names of two advocates -- Amitesh Banerjee and Sakya Sen -- for appointment as judges of the Calcutta High Court "expeditiously", saying it was not open for the government to repeatedly send back the same proposal.
Advocate Banerjee is the son of former apex court judge Justice U C Banerjee, who headed a commission that in 2006 ruled out conspiracy angle in the 2002 Sabarmati Express fire tragedy at Godhra that killed 58 'kar sevaks'. The Godhra incident had triggered widespread communal riots in Gujarat.
Advocate Sen is the son of Justice Shyamal Sen, who was elevated as a permanent judge of the Calcutta High Court in February 1986 and later became the chief justice of the Allahabad High Court. Justice Sen also served as the Governor of West Bengal from May 1999 to December 1999.
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Justice (retd) Sen had headed an inquiry commission which probed the multi-crore Saradha Group ponzi scam.
The names of advocates Banerjee and Sen were initially recommended by the Collegium of the Calcutta High Court on December 17, 2018 and the Supreme Court Collegium had approved the proposal on July 24, 2019.
The three-member Collegium of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and KM Joseph, which held its meeting on January 18, said, "In view of the above, the Collegium resolves to return the file for processing the recommendations for appointment of Amitesh Banerjee and Sakya Sen as Judges of the Calcutta High Court expeditiously."
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The resolution of the meeting noted that the Department of Justice referred back their names on July 23, 2021 and the Supreme Court Collegium reiterated its earlier recommendation in respect of Amitesh Banerjee on September 1, 2021.
It said that on September 27, 2021, the department of justice forwarded additional inputs of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) dated September 24, 2021 in respect of Sen and the top court collegium had reiterated its earlier recommendation on October 8, 2021 for his elevation.
It said the Department of Justice again referred the file back to the Collegium on November 25, 2022.
"The inputs which have been furnished by the Department of Justice in the file on November 25, 2022 do not contain any fresh material or ground. Moreover, after the Supreme Court Collegium reiterated the proposal on September 1, 2021, it was not open to the Department to repeatedly send back the same proposal which has been reiterated by the Supreme Court Collegium after duly considering the objections of the Government," it said.
Besides reiterating the names of Banerjee and Sen, the three-judge Collegium has also reiterated the names of senior advocate Saurabh Kirpal as a judge of the Delhi High Court, advocate R John Sathyan as judge of Madras High Court (in its meeting held on January 17) and advocate Somasekhar Sundaresan as a judge of the Bombay High Court.
Apart from reiteration of names of advocates to be elevated as judges of high courts, the Collegium in its meeting held on January 17 recommended the elevation of 17 advocates and three judicial officers as judges of the high courts of Karnataka, Allahabad and Madras.
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For Madras High Court, the three-member collegium has recommended the names of advocates Venkatachari Lakshminarayanan, Lekshmana Chandra Victoria Gowri, Pillaipakkam Bahukutumbi Balaji, Ramaswamy Neelakandan and Kandhasami Kulandaivelu Ramakrishnan.
It has also recommended the names of three judicial officers--Periyasamy Vadamalai, Ramachandran Kalaimathi and K Govindarajan Thilakavadi -- for a judgeship at the Madras High Court.
For the Allahabad High Court, the collegium has approved the proposal for the elevation of the nine advocates-- Prashant Kumar, Syed Qamar Hasan Rizvi, Manish Kumar Nigam, Manjive Shukla, Anish Kumar Gupta, Nand Prabha Shukla, Arun Kumar Singh Deshwal, Kshitij Shailendra and Vinod Diwakar.
The Collegium has recommended the names of advocates Vijaykumar Adagouda Patil, Rajesh Rai Kallangala and Tajali Moulasab Nadaf for elevation as judges of the Karnataka High Court.
