Appointments in Tribunals clearly indicates cherry picking of names: SC to Centre

The Supreme Court on Wednesday expressed displeasure over nonfilling of vacancies at the tribunals across the nation and said the manner in which appointments have been made clearly indicates cherry picking of namesThe top asked the Centre to make appointments within two weeks to the tribunals which are facing severe crunch of presiding officers as well as judicial and technical members and apprise it of reasons if persons from the recommended list are left out in the processA bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justices D Y Chandrachud and L Nageswara Rao said the condition is pitiable at the tribunals due to the vacancies and the litigants cannot be left in the lurchThe appointment letters which have been issued clearly indicate they have selected cherry picking three names from the select list and others from the waitlist ignoring others in the select list In service law you cant go to the waitlist ignoring the select list What kind of selection and appointment is this the bench asked the Attorney General K K VenugopalVenugopal assured the bench that the Centre would make appointments in two weeks to the tribunals from the list of persons recommended by the search and selection committeeSenior advocate Arvind datar said that for the ITAT the search cum selection committee selected 41 people but only 13 have been chosen on basis which we dont knowThis is nothing new Every time it is the same story the bench saidThe CJI said the Supreme Court judges undertook an elaborate exercise to shortlist the names during the COVID and the entire efforts are going in vainWe travelled across the country We spent a lot of time During Covid19 your government requested us to conduct interviews as early as possible We wasted so much time the CJI expressed exasperationThe CJI said that as per the latest appointment the members will have a tenure of only one year and said Which judge will go to join this job for one yearOn the issue of nonacceptance of names recommended by the selection committee Venugopal said the government has the power not to accept the recommendations madeWe are a democratic country in which rule of law is followed and we are working under the Constitution You cant say that I dont accept the CJI saidWhat is the sanctity of the process if the government has the last word Selection committee undertakes an elaborate process to shortlist the names the bench saidThere are around 250 posts lying vacant in various key tribunals and appellate tribunals across the countryThe top court was hearing a clutch of petitions on the issue of vacancies in tribunals and the new law governing quasi judicial bodiesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliabilitsy and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever