Appointment of High Court Judge; indication that Ezhavas and backward classes are not included in collegium list

KOCHI: It is indicated that backward classes including Ezhavas and Christians are not represented in the final list prepared by the collegium to appoint High Court judges.

The list was prepared by a collegium comprising Chief Justice Ashish J Desai, Justice A Mohammed Mushtaq and Justice AK Jayasankaran Nambiar. This list will be scrutinized by the Supreme Court Collegium and recommended to the Union Law Ministry. The Ministry is supposed to take the final decision.

In the list of seven persons prepared by the High Court collegium, four persons, including one woman, belong to the Nair community. There is one each from Brahmin, Scheduled Caste/Tribe and Muslim communities.

The preparation of such a list, despite repeated directions by the Supreme Court and the Union Law Ministry to ensure adequate representation of backward classes in the appointment of judges, has led to protests. At present there are three judges from the advocates council belonging to the Ezhava community .

Scheduled caste representation ensured

Advocates with ten years of practice in the High Court are considered for the appointment. Earlier, their caste-community representation was also taken into account before the appointment was made. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes have not been given any consideration at all recently.

A petition filed by Dr MK Mukundan, a resident of Ernakulam Ponnurunni, in November, pointing out that SC/ST and backward groups like Latin Catholics do not get enough representation in the appointments of judges, is under consideration by the High Court. It is indicated that one person from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes has been included in the list due to this.

Three Ezhava names were cut

A list of 40 lawyers was initially prepared. This was later reduced to 25 and 20. A list of 14 people was prepared after going through the stages including re-interview and clearance from IB was sought. 11 of them were from Ernakulam district. Their names are the ones that came out in recent days. At this stage, there were three Ezhava names, including a woman who was a former government pleader. They were eliminated in the final list.