Oath of Gauhati High Court judge was put on hold since Centre did not initially clear name of senior candidate: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Monday noted the fact that the swearing-in of a recently appointed Gauhati High Court judge was delayed because the Central government had declined to clear the name of another senior candidate, Unni Krishnan Nair, who was recommended by the Collegium for judgeship..The oath-taking of the judge who was recommended along with Nair was put on hold in order to ensure that the seniority of Nair was not affected.The government eventually cleared Nair's name and he was sworn in first.The name of Nair and Advocate Kaushik Goswami were recommended by the Collegium for judgeship in October this year.The Central government notified the appointment of Goswami in November as an additional judge of the Gauhati High Court. However, it deferred processing the name of Nair, whose name was also proposed in the same Collegium resolution.The delayed notification of his appointment was set to reduce Nair's seniority.However, the High Court deferred the swearing-in of Goswami and oath was administered to Nair (six years older) first to maintain seniority..During the hearing of a case concerning delays in appointing judges, Senior Advocate Dushyant Dave said that the Acting Chief Justice (CJ) of the Gauhati High Court ensured that the senior judge was sworn in first."It was an eye opener that in Guwahati, a senior judge whose name was withheld was (eventually) sworn in first. The High Court Acting CJ ensured," he said."Let us say they were advised to (smiles)," the Bench replied with a smile.A Bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Sudhanshu Dhulia then proceeded to record the same in its order."In Gauhati, one of the senior candidates' name was not cleared in the first instance. This was taken up on a serious note and the oath to other was delayed to facilitate government to issue warrant of appointment of the said person," the order noted..The Court also noted during the hearing today that the transfer of six High Court judges are yet to be cleared by the government. Out of these, six are from the Gujarat High Court and one each are from Allahabad and Delhi. The Court also said that eight names reiterated by the Collegium are yet to be cleared by the Centre."Eight candidates not appointed from recently reiterated names. Some of these are senior to others appointed. This is something on which we have spoken of earlier, that it becomes difficult to then to persuade candidates to join the bench," the Bench remarked.It also questioned the Central government over the non-appointment of two Sikh lawyers as the judges of a High Court.The Court while apparently referring to the Centre's failure to clear the names of advocates Harmeet Singh Grewal and Deepinder Singh Nalwa for appointment as judges of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, said,"Two of the candidates not cleared are both Sikhs. Why should this arise? Don't let past issues link up with present pending ones."After the Attorney General sought time in the matter, the matter was adjourned to December 5.