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I am of the considered opinion that the Central Government decision of sending back the name of Justice K.M. Joseph for elevation as Supreme Court judge for reconsideration by the collegium, is a right decision. There are 41+3 = 44 reasons for this.Justice K.M. Joseph was initially appointed as a judge of the High Court of Kerala on 14.10.2004. At present, there are 41 High Court judges who are senior to him. All of them have been ignored or superseded for ensuring that Justice KM Joseph be elevated. I can understand if one or two judges are superseded, if they are not so good comparatively. But, superseding as many as 41 High Court judges (including Chief Justices of many high courts) is really a serious matter. It reflects poorly on the collegium. Just yesterday, I wrote in an answer how collegium decisions are non-transparent and generally unreasoned [Ashok Dhamija's answer to What was the reason that Jasti Chelameswar was denied to be the 45th Chief Justice of India despite being the senior-most judge of Supreme Court?].Here is a list of 16 existing Chief Justices or Acting Chief Justices of various High Courts (see: http://doj.gov.in/sites/default/files/CJ-01.04.2018.pdf) who have been superseded by the Supreme Court collegium while recommending the name of Justice KM Joseph for appointment as Supreme Court judge (date in the bracket is the date of first appointment as HC judge):1. Allahabad HC Chief Justice D.B.Bhosale (22/01/2001).2. Bombay HC Acting Chief Justice Smt.V.K.Tahilramani (26/06/2001).3. Calcutta HC Acting Chief Justice Jyotirmay Bhattacharya (03/12/2003).4. Delhi HC Acting Chief Justice Ms. Gita Mittal (16/07/2004).5. Gauhati HC Chief Justice Ajit Singh (01/04/2002).6. Gujarat HC Chief Justice R. Subhash Reddy (02/12/2002).7. Jharkhand HC Acting Chief Justice Dhirubhai N. Patel (07/03/2004).8. Karnataka HC Chief Justice Dinesh Maheshwari (02/09/2004).9. Madhya Pradesh HC Chief Justice Hemant Gupta (02/07/2002).10. Madras HC Chief Justice Kumari Indira Banerjee (05/02/2002).11. Orissa HC Chief Justice Vineet Saran (14/02/2002).12. Patna HC Chief Justice Rajendra Menon (01/04/2002).13. Punjab & Haryana HC Chief Justice S.J. Vazifdar (22/01/2001).14. Rajasthan HC Chief Justice Pradeep Nandrajog (20/12/2002).15. Tripura HC Chief Justice Ajay Rastogi (02/09/2004).16. Chhattisgarh HC Chief Justice Thottathil B. Radhakrishnan (14/10/2004) [Note: He was appointed as HC judge on the same date as Justice K.M. Joseph, so it is not a case of supersession but he should have been considered equally.]In addition, there are another 25 or 26 judges of various High Courts who were appointed as Judges of the High Court BEFORE Justice K.M. Joseph, who are yet to elevated even as Chief Justice of any High Court, whereas Justice Joseph is being elevated as Supreme Court judge.Just have a look at these names. Do you think that all the above Hon’ble Judges are not doing good work? Do they need to be superseded en masse to ensure that Justice KM Joseph is given out of turn elevation to the Supreme Court?How can you condemn so many senior judges, who are senior to Justice KM Joseph? What is their fault? If they are not suitable, then why do you continue to have them as Chief Justice or a Judge of a High Court?Let me tell you frankly, I have personally appeared before some of these 41 judges. I don’t think they are less meritorious than others.As I mentioned above, superseding one or two judges can be understood, because one can appreciate that one or two judges may not be that efficient, but condemning 41 senior judges in one go and superseding them just to favour one particular judge is really a cause of concern and shows how the collegium working is not perfect.I understand that many legal experts and senior lawyers (even many retired judges) are supporting Justice KM Joseph. There are various reasons for that, including political. Many of them are in fact supporting him in order to maintain the sanctity of the decision of the collegium. Or, between the Government and the SC collegium, they want the collegium decision to prevail. Okay, it may have some appeal. I may also generally agree more with the collegium than with the Government. But, should one support the SC collegium even if it takes a decision which appears to be arbitrary or unreasonable to a large number of senior judges? Superseding 41 senior judges, many of whom are sitting Chief Justices of High Courts is something which is completely unusual for the collegium to decide. I cannot agree with the assertion that all these 41 judges have no merit or that Justice KM Joseph is more meritorious than them. What is the criterion of judging the comparative merit? It has not been disclosed. In any case, you’ll notice that in next few months, many of these 41 judges would also be ultimately elevated, which would clearly show that they had merit. Then, why supersede them right now?I am not at all suggesting that Justice KM Joseph is not a good judge. He may be an outstanding judge. By all means, he should be elevated as a Supreme Court judge. But, it should be done in his turn. It should be done by respecting the seniority of judges while giving reasonable weightage to merit (of course, one or two odd judges who do not have merit, even though senior, may be superseded, but not 41 judges in one go).Let me give another example. Right now there are 24 judges in the Supreme Court. Chief Justice of India, Justice Dipak Misra would be retiring on 02.10.2018 and the next senior most judge at that time would be Justice Ranjan Gogoi. So, next Chief Justice of India would be Justice Ranjan Gogoi in all likelihood. Now, suppose, at that time, Justice S. Abdul Nazeer (who is at seniority of 22) or Justice Navin Sinha (who is at seniority of 23) is appointed as next Chief Justice of India, superseding Justice Ranjan Gogoi and about 20 other judges, how would you feel? How will the so-called liberal media feel? Will they call it the murder of democracy and the murder of the institution of judiciary?Then why should you not have the same feeling when a particular judge is being elevated as Supreme Court judge by superseding as many as 41 senior judges? Why there is no hue and cry now? If this is not double standard and then what it is?Many of the esteemed readers are in Government service. How will you feel if you are No. 1 in the seniority list but someone at No. 42 in the Seniority List is promoted and not you? Almost all of the esteemed readers would have appeared in various examinations. How would you feel if someone at No. 42 is declared the topper even though you may have got the highest marks?So, look at the frustration of those 41 judges who are senior and yet they have been superseded. Remember, these 41 judges are also from the same Indian judiciary, they are not from Mars or Venus. They also expect equal justice from the collegium. So, if denying elevation (that too – out of turn) to Justice KM Joseph can amount to compromising the judiciary, then would denying elevation (which would be more equitable they being senior) to as many as 41 more senior judges the same opportunity not amount to a similar compromise? I again and again re-emphasise – one or two judges may be bad or inefficient, but not all 41 judges.Before I end, here are some other reasons given by the Central Government for not accepting the collegium recommendation in respect of Justice KM Joseph:Ten High Courts are currently not represented in the Supreme Court. [It is generally a practice that as far as possible, most high courts should be represented in the Supreme Court.]On the other hand, if Justice Joseph is appointed, there would be two judges in the Supreme Court whose parent high courts would be the Kerala High Court. This is to be considered keeping in mind that Kerala High Court is comparatively a smaller High Court.There hasn't been any SC/ST representation in the Supreme Court for a long time.My humble submission is that I have greatest respect for the talent of Justice KM Joseph. He may be an outstanding judge. He should definitely be elevated to the Supreme Court. But, it should not be done at the cost of superseding and condemning 41 other judges who are senior to him. He should become SC judge in his own turn, by way of his seniority.In fact, it is also puzzling as to how Justice KM Joseph was elevated as Chief Justice of a High Court judge in 2014, after less than 10 years of judgeship, when there are judges with 17-18 years’ seniority yet to be appointed as Chief Justice of any High Court.You may also like to see my previous answer on the similar issue: Ashok Dhamija's answer to How is the Modi government blocking KM Joseph's elevation to the Supreme Court, considering judicial appointments are to be independent?

Afraid so.On 11/9/20, variou lawsuits in multiple states will be heard, and over 450,000 Biden ballots will be forced to be re-examined by court order to ensure an accurate count.Biden may still win, but at least the election will be verified to accurately reflect the public's will.And if it's found that election fraud occured, it could invalidate a lot of votes, and tip the votes in Trump's favor in several states. Trump could snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.If that happens, a lot of people who celebrated early and gloated will be shocked and embarrassed.Let the process play out, and let justice prevail. Whoever wins can then declare victory with a clear conscience.

“We don’t want wise men saying 20 yrs from now that Justice Chelameswar, Gogoi, Lokur and Kurian Joseph sold their souls and didn’t do the right thing by our constitution”: Justice ChelameswarThis act symbolises the rot that has afflicted the Supreme court in recent times. It is unfortunate. There is unprecedented distrust among the judges to devise and deal with procedural issues.Justice Chelameswar has been a rebel of sorts as can be seen from a long list of some controversial actions and judgements that he has delivered in the Supreme court. Let’s examine Judge Chelameshwar’s record first:He was perhaps the only judge to be critical of the collegial system of appointing judges. He was the sole dissenting judge in the NJAC case. There was speculation that he was denied the opportunity to be Chief Justice because the process worked against him.He would decline to be part of meetings convened to deliberate on judges appointment and preferred give his opinion only in writing. This naturally caused some heartburn among the other judges.To his credit, he did try to reform the Supreme court judicial system. He chose to refer the issue of whether privacy is a fundamental right to a larger constitutional bench since there were many confusing and conflicting judgements. He was of the view that all the judges of the Supreme Court should sit as one bench to judge critical and far reaching constitutional issues. This suggestion was never carried out.———————————————————————————————————-However the recent event seems triggered by what happened in Nov 2017 in the Supreme Court.Justice Chelameswar along with Justice Nazeer passed an order to constitute a five-judge bench in a petition filed by CJAR which demanded that a SIT be constituted to look into a corruption scandal pertaining to a case involving a medical college. Now, the legal questions surrounding the order was:Can the Chief Justice be made to be part of the hearing as the scandal implicates a judgement which the Chief Justice himself wrote?Can a constitution bench be constituted without the the CJI’s consent as the p standard procedure is that only the CJI can do that? The controversy over this point is that Art 142 allows the judge to do all things necessary to secure justice. So, should the rule of law prevail or the procedure prevail?For the record, the CJI urgently set up a five judge bench headed by him and immediately overturned the order passes by Judge Chelameshwar. The 5 judge bench in their judgement announced that NO JUDGE can take up matter on its own unless allotted by the CJI and the CJI is master of the SC rosterIn short, the Chief Justice overrules the order given by the senior most judge, who had ordered an SIT that would have enquired into the judgement which the CJI himself had written !!———————————————With today’s action, the 5 judges have just raised the ante and visibility that there is a need for urgent reform.My view: The nation’s attention better could have been better drawn if they had resigned and then addressed the nation. He even alluded that there is justification for the CJI to be impeached when asked whether the CJI should be impeached.Picture abhi baaki hai mere dost!!