Jharkhand HC chief justice gets 16-day tenure due to late nod

The Union government on Wednesday notified the appointment of justice BR Sarangi as the chief justice of the Jharkhand high court, albeit with a brief tenure before his impending retirement on July 20.

The appointment came after prolonged delays by the Centre, which did not move on the collegium’s recommendation made in December last year, highlighting ongoing concerns over judicial appointments and administrative delays.

The government’s endorsement of justice Sarangi’s elevation to the chief justiceship was announced by law minister Arjun Ram Meghwal on X, by sharing the notification that offers him just around a fortnight at the helm of the Jharkhand high court. The high court has remained without a full-time chief justice since December 29, two days after the collegium’s recommendation to appoint justice Sarangi.

This appointment highlights varying timelines in the appointment of judges and chief justices across various high courts.

Notably, while clearing justice Sarangi’s appointment, the government has again chosen to leave out the appointment of justice Sheel Nagu as chief justice of the Punjab & Haryana high court. Justice Nagu’s appointment is the only one of the five names proposed by the collegium in December 2022 that remains pending. The other three appointments — justices Arun Bhansali, Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Vijay Bishnoi as chief justices of the high courts of Allahabad, Rajasthan and Gauhati respectively — were cleared by the Centre in February.

The Punjab & Haryana high court has been without a full-time justice since February 4.

The Delhi high court, too, has not had a full-time chief justice since November 9, 2023, while high courts of Madhya Pradesh and Madras are also functioning with acting chiefs since May this year.

The memorandum of procedure of appointment (MoP) of high court judges – a guidebook of understanding between the Supreme Court collegium and the central government in matters of appointment and transfer of judges of constitutional courts, lays down that “the Government have, in consultation with the Chief Justice of India, decided as a matter of policy to appoint the Chief Justice of all High Courts from outside.” The MoP was framed in 1999 as the standard based on three decisions of the Supreme Court that evolved the collegium system as the selection mechanism for the appointment of judges in India.

The first three Supreme Court judges, including the Chief Justice of India, comprise the collegium recommending the appointment of chief justices in high courts. The collegium is currently made up of CJI Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, and justices Sanjiv Khanna and BR Gavai.

The Supreme Court collegium puts out some basic reasons which serve as a rationale for the appointments or transfers that they recommend, but the existing MoP does not bind the central government to a timeline to respond — it can simply sit on the collegium’s recommendations.

Justice Sarangi’s brief tenure highlights systemic challenges within the appointment process, resonating with earlier instances like that of justice Sabina’s retirement from the Himachal Pradesh high court without assuming the chief justice’s office due to non-notification of the collegium’s recommendation. She retired in April 2023 as the government did not notify the collegium’s February 2023 recommendation to appoint as her as the chief justice.

Another judge who barely made it to the coveted office of chief justice (for just 10 days), was justice Jaswant Singh. He was supposed to become the chief justice of Orissa high court after the transfer of justice S Muralidhar, according to a September 2022 recommendation by the collegium. When the government did not process justice Muralidhar’s transfer, the collegium revised its recommendation in January 2023 and made a fresh proposal to transfer justice Singh to the Tripura high court in view of his retirement clock. He retired in February 2023.