P&H High Court rejects PIL challenging collegium recommendation to appoint Haryana AG as judge

The Punjab and Haryana High Court recently dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) petition that challenged the Supreme Court Collegium's recommendation to appoint Senior Advocate Pravindra Singh Chauhan as a High Court judge [Pradeep Singh v Union of India and Others].

Chauhan is currently the Advocate General of Haryana. His name was recommended for appointment as a High Court judge in May along with names of nine other advocates. The Central government has not yet approved any of the names.

A Division Bench of Acting Chief Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Justice Rohit Kapoor on August 10 dismissed a plea seeking the recall of the Collegium recommendation pertaining to Chauhan.

The Bench said that the process of appointing judges is exhaustive, and that recommendations for the same are not ordinarily open to question. It added that appointments to a high constitutional office cannot be questioned or examined at the mere asking of a petitioner.

The Court noted that the process of appointing a High Court judge is initiated by the High Court Collegium, and the proposal is then sent to the State government, which receives inputs from various intelligence agencies.

"Thereafter, recommendation is made by the State Government in the matter. The proposal is then taken to the Ministry of Law and Justice, where once again, intelligence inputs are collected and with the appropriate reports etc., obtained from all relevant quarters, the matter is placed before the Collegium of the Hon’ble Supreme Court, which consists of Chief Justice of India and two senior-most Judges of the Supreme Court," it added.

The Court also observed that the petitioner, Pradeep Singh's earlier plea challenging the appointment of Pravindra Singh Chauhan as the Advocate General of Haryana was dismissed on January 21.

Further, the Court noted that Singh, a former employee of the Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission, had faced departmental proceedings in the past, leading to his discharge from service. Chauhan, at that time, was a judicial member of the commission.

Considering these facts, the Court observed that the petitioner appears to have some personal grievances against Chauhan.

It reiterated that a PIL of a person intending to settle personal scores cannot be entertained by the Court.

"The PIL petition was supposed to be a 'tool' for the redressal of legitimate grievances of the public at large, and such proceedings cannot be allowed to be invoked for extraneous reasons by unscrupulous persons," the Bench said.

The Court added that the filing of such successive petitions against Chauhan by the petitioner would not be entertained.

Such attempts must be thwarted at the very outset, it said, while dismissing the plea with a cost of ₹1 lakh. The amount so paid is to be deposited with the Poor Patient Welfare Fund, PGIMER, Chandigarh, the Court added.

Advocate Jagmohan Singh Bhatti represented the petitioner.

Additional Solicitor General Satya Pal Jain, with Advocate Saigeeta Srivastava represented the Union of India.

Senior Advocate Chetan Mittal, with Advocates Ranjit Singh Kalra, Avichal Sharma and Adhiraj Sood represented the High Court.

Senior Advocate Maninder Singh Garcha, Additional Advocate General, Punjab, with Assistant Advocate General Samdisha Kaur represented the State of Punjab.

[Read Judgment]