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The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to list a petition filed by NGO Centre for Public Interest Litigation, pending since 2018, seeking strict timelines for the Centre to act on the recommendations by the Collegium for the appointment of judges.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, for the petitioner, mentioned the matter before the Chief Justice of India for urgent listing, pointing out that the matter has not been listed since December 2023 after the retirement of Justice SK Kaul.

"After  December 2023, it has not been unfortunately listed. It was supposed to be listed yesterday, but not listed.  Still, there are problems remaining with the whole proces of judicial appointments, though some problems may have been sorted out," Bhushan said.

"More or less likely to be solved, in any case we can list," CJI Surya Kant replied.

The petition of CPIL was being considered by a bench led by Justice SK Kaul, along with the contept petition filed by Advocates Association of Bengaluru, in which a series of directions were passed in 2022-2023, criticising the Centre for sitting over collegium recommendations, and for making selective appointments.

The matter was listed last on December 5, 2023, however was deleted from the list without explanation, over which Justice SK Kaul expressed surprise.

Last year, when the matter was mentioned for listing, the then CJI BR Gavai said that the Collegium was pursuing the matter with the Government on the administrative side. The matter was then mentioned in the context of two lawyers withdrawing their consent for judgeship after the Centre kept their names pending for a long time.

Case : Centre for Public Interest Litigation v. Union of India | WP(c) 895/2018

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