New Delhi: The Supreme Court Bar Association(SCBA) that constituted a search committee to come up with names of meritorious Supreme Court(SC) lawyers for elevation as High Court judges has submitted 48 names to the Chief Justice of India in a sealed cover.
Sources say that there were almost 69 names that were under preliminary consideration by the search committee and after debate and scrutiny, 48 names have been considered and submitted to the CJI .
The office bearers of the SCBA and senior advocates were part of the search committee which finalised the names. The committee colonists of Senior Advocate Vikas Singh, Senior Advocate Pradeep Rai, Senior Advocate Mahalaxmi Pavani, Senior Advocates Rakesh Dwivedi, Shekhar Naphade, Vijay Hansaria and V Giri.
However, the matter is not without controversy. The SCBA proposal had drawn flak from several high court bar associations. The high court bar associations had written to the CJI saying that there is an erroneous premise in the proposal that SC lawyers seem to be more meritorious than their High court counterparts in the states. The High court associations also took exception to the search committer being constituted by the SCBA. The associations pointed out that it was the high court collegiums that are supposed to consider names for elevation to the High courts.
