Silence: Supreme court invokes ‘silence is approval’ clause to name 3 judge picks | India News

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court collegium headed by CJI D Y Chandrachud has recommended to the Union government appointment of 13 judicial officers and five advocates as judges of various high courts, three of whom were made invoking a rarely used “silence is approval” clause in the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP).

Para 14 of the MoP for appointment of HC judges provides that if comments of the state constitutional authorities are not received within six weeks from the date of receipt of the proposal from the HC chief justice, it should be presumed by the Union minister of law and justice that the governor and chief minister have nothing to add to the proposal and proceed accordingly.

The collegium of CJI, Justices Sanjay K Kaul and Sanjiv Khanna invoked MoP to recommend appointments of judicial officers Biswajit Palit and Sabyasachi D Purkayastha as judges of the Tripura HC and Vimal Kanaiyalal Vyas as judge of Gujarat HC.

Interestingly, the collegium recommended appointment of retired district judge Shalinder Kaur and district judge Ravinder Dudeja, at present registrar general of Delhi HC, as judges of the Delhi HC. The five judicial officers recommended for appointment as judges of Kerala HC are M B Snehalata, Johnson John, G Girish, C Pratheepkumar and P Krishna Kumar. For the Bombay HC, the collegium recommended appointment of three judicial officers Abhay J Mantri, Shyam C Chandak and Neeraj P Dhote. Advocate Ravindra Kumar Agrawal’s name has been recommended for appointment as judge of the Chhattisgarh HC

More than four and half years after Justice M V Muralidaran was transferred from Madras HC to Manipur HC, the SC collegium recommended his transfer to Calcutta HC rejecting his request for either continuance at Manipur HC or transfer to his parent HC, since he is due for retirement in April 2024.