NEW DELHI: In a big pushback to “seniority” as an elevation criteria, Chief Justice NV Ramana on Monday administered oath to new SC judges Sudhanshu Dhulia and Jamshed Burjor Pardiwala, who leapfrogged many HC chief justices and superseded scores of HC judges. Justice Dhulia, as Gauhati HC chief justice, was 30th in the all-India seniority list of HC judges. Appointed as a judge of the Uttarakhand HC on November 1, 2008, he was junior to 23 CJs/acting CJs of HCs, except Uttarakhand acting CJ Sanjay Kumar Mishra, who was appointed on October 7, 2009 as a HC judge. Thus, Dhulia superseded 23 CJs/acting CJs and six other HC judges.
Justice Pardiwala, who was number three in the Gujarat HC and 49th in the all-India seniority list, not only superseded all CJs/acting CJs of the HCs, but also jumped over another 25 HC judges, who are stranded in the seniority queue for selection as SC judge.
Justice Jamshed Burjor Pardiwala, who took oath as an SC judge on Monday, was appointed permanent judge of the Gujarat HC on January 28, 2013.
In contrast, Punjab and Haryana HC CJ Ravi Shankar Jha was appointed HC judge on October 18, 2005; Allahabad HC CJ Rajesh Bindal on March 22, 2006; Orissa HC CJ S Muralidhar on May 29, 2006; Delhi HC acting CJ Vipin Sanghi on May 29, 2006; Bombay HC CJ Dipankar Datta on June 22, 2006; Madras HC CJ Munishwar Nath Bhandari on July 5, 2007; Patna HC CJ Sanjay Karol on March 8, 2007; Calcutta HC CJ Prakash Srivastava on January 18, 2008, and Andhra Pradesh CJ Prashant Kumar Mishra on December 10, 2009.
Legal circles are aware that seniority is not the sole criteria for selection of SC judges, from among HC CJs and judges. But it is widely acknowledged in judicial circles that the selection dice gets loaded considerably in favour of HC CJs/judges having sufficient seniority.
The selection of Justices Dhulia and Pardiwala as SC judges came as a surprise to many as they felt there were many HC CJs who have been heading the highest court in various states for a long period of time, only to get shunted periodically from one state to another.
If one takes the other often-professed selection factors — representation to unrepresented regions/states and communities in the Supreme Court — to reflect the composite culture of the country, there too the SC collegium faltered.
Justice Dhulia’s selection could pass muster as it accounted for representation to Uttarakhand in the SC. But giving one more judge post to Gujarat in Justice Pardiwala defied logic as the SC already has two from the state — Justices MR Shah and Bela M Trivedi. Many states — Odisha, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, J&K, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and all northeastern states (excluding Assam) — have been unrepresented for a long time.
Judges, whose parent HCs are either Bombay and Delhi, dominate the SC with five and four representations, respectively, accounting for over 26% of the present strength. Gujarat, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh (undivided) also have three judges each in SC. Thus, four states and Delhi account for more than 50% of the judges in the SC, reflecting imbalance in regional representation.
Justices Dhulia and Pardiwala were given oath at the new auditorium in the presence of all its judges, attorney general, solicitor general and lawyers. While Justice Dhulia will have a short tenure of a little over three years, Justice Pardiwala will ride on the seniority ticket and go on to succeed Justice PS Narasimha as CJI on May 3, 2028. He will have a tenure of two years, three months and eight days as CJI and will retire on August 11, 2030.
