Supreme Court declines urgent hearing in Gujarat district judges promotion case

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to urgently hear and dispose of an interim application seeking the vacation of an order staying the promotion of 68 Gujarat magistrates to district judge posts. [Ravikumar Maheta and anr vs High Court of Gujarat and ors].The hearing today also saw a brief heated exchange between the bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and Pankaj Mithal and Senior Advocate Dushyant Dave.Dave, who appeared for some of the petitioner-judges, at the outset urged the Court to take up the matter tomorrow."The interim order is hurting us. Promotion has been stayed. Lordship may hear us on interim relief of vacating stay. This has to be heard. These are drastic orders. Interim orders are against the law laid down by this court. This is a one-hour case, lordships may take it tomorrow," he saidJustice Roy took exception to the request, and questioned why this case should be prioritised. "Why should this case get precedence? We have far more pressing and important matters tomorrow. I decline your request. Can you guarantee that the other matters are less important? I do not appreciate this submission. This is told to everyone. Why should it be taken up tomorrow?" Justice Roy remarked. .After declining to give a fixed date for the hearing, the bench today explained to counsel that owing to its heavy workload, it will not be able to decide on interim relief by July 31, when some of the judges before the Court are slated to retire.After conceding to the same, Dave sought to make amends."Lordships should not be disturbed by our submissions. We do this every day. We owe it to our clients, the subordinate judges," he said.Justice Roy then smiled and replied,"Mr, Dave is so persuasive that sometimes we appear disturbed. It is not so. We can have a calm discussion. But no, we cannot grant the interim relief by the date you want at this stage.""Yes, but they will have to suffer now, cannot help it," Dave added, on a parting note. .As the hearing drew to a close, the bench orally indicated that it would list the matter sometime in August..The plea before the Supreme Court challenges decisions by the Gujarat government and Gujarat High Court to make district judge appointments on the basis of seniority-cum-merit.The petitioners, who aspire to be appointed as district judges, contended that the same should have been on the existing principle of merit-cum-seniority, as per which merit is given preference over seniority.The top court had sought the response of the High Court and the State government in the main matter on April 13 this year. However, four days later, the government had gone ahead and notified a promotion list.The Supreme Court later, in its order on April 28, termed this development as 'very unfortunate'..The Supreme Court had then stayed the decision of the Gujarat High Court and the subsequent State government notification to promote 68 judicial officers to the post of district judges based on the seniority-cum-merit rule (where seniority is given preference over merit).However, the Court had made it clear that the stay will not apply to those on the list who would get promoted based on merit alone since they would anyway be promoted, even if the promotion was based on giving precedence to merit over seniority.Among the 68 promoted was Surat Judicial Magistrate Harish Hasmukhbhai Varma, who had held Congress leader Rahul Gandhi guilty of criminal defamation in March and sentenced him to two years of simple imprisonment.Justice MR Shah had soon after clarified to Bar & Bench that the stay will not apply to Judge Varma..Besides Dave, Senior Advocate R Basant also appeared for some of the petitioners today..Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, Senior Counsel Dushyant Dave engage in verbal spat