Supreme Court collegium has returned all the recommendations sent by Patna High Court for the elevation to the appointment as High Court judges. The recommendations include the names of 15 advocates and half a dozen district judges.
The collegium has not accepted any of the recommendations and returned those 21 names. This is the rarest incident where an SC collegium has shown dissent to the whole list of recommendations by a High Court. As per the sources, the collegium has not recorded any reasons behind this decision.
In Patna High Court, there are 30 vacancies against the sanctioned strength of 53 judges. After Centre and Supreme Court collegium receives the recommendations from the High Court, the law ministry used to run an independent background verification through Intelligence Bureau.
Then, it writes to the state government and governor to know their opinion about the recommendations and thoroughly scrutinize for eligibility criteria.
It is alleged that the caste system is playing a big role in the recommendations and backward communities are overlooked in the process. A writ petition has been filed before Patna High Court alleging some of the authorities of favouring certain castes.
