The Supreme Court has doubled down on the elevation of three lawyers to High Court, publicly scrapping the Centre's objections. One of them is Saurabh Kirpal, who alleged that his sexual orientation was the reason he was rejected by the government.
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The court has uploaded the letters to the Centre on its website, refuting objections to the elevation of Saurabh Kirpal to the Delhi High Court, Somasekhar Sundaresan to the Bombay High Court and R John Sathyan to the Madras High Court. Under the rules, the government has to accept a name that is sent by the Supreme Court Collegium for a second time.
In case of Mr Kirpal, the Court has rejected both reasons cited by the government -- that the candidate is openly gay and his partner is a Swiss national. Rejecting him on these grounds will be "manifestly contrary to the constitutional principles," said the Collegium that decides on judges' appointments, pointing out that many constitutional functionaries have foreign nationals as spouses.
In an interview to NDTV in November, Mr Kirpal said he believed his elevation was viewed with disfavour because of his sexual orientation. "I don't think the government necessarily wants to appoint an openly gay person to the bench," he told NDTV.
The court's second letter to the Centre indicated that the elevation of Somasekhar Sundaresan of the Bombay High Court was rejected over his social media posts. Sources said he had posted critical tweets on the Citizenship Amendment Act.
"All citizens have the right to free speech," the top court said. "Expression of views by a candidate does not disentitle him to hold a constitutional office so long as the person proposed for judgeship is a person of competence, merit and integrity," it added.
Madras High Court lawyer R John Sathiyan had got a black mark from the Intelligence Bureau over his social media posts too. One of these was an article critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
He also had another post "regarding committing of suicide by medical aspirant Anitha, who ended her life in 2017 since she was unable to clear NEET, portraying it as a killing by 'political betrayal' and a tag stating 'shame of you India' came to notice," the top court said.
The Intelligence Bureau report mentions he has a good personal and professional image, and no overt political leaning. So the adverse comments of the IB "will not impinge on the suitability, character or integrity of Shri Sathyan," the court said.
The court's move to make the documents public comes amid the tussle with the government over judges' appointment. Last week, Vice-President and Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar's escalated the legislature versus judiciary debate with his comments.
He questioned the historic 1973 Supreme Court judgment on the Kesavananda Bharati case and the resulting basic structure doctrine. He also indicated that the judiciary should know its limits. The Congress had called it "extraordinary attack on the judiciary".
