Supreme Court collegium meets to decide on next CJI, other appointments

The Supreme Court collegium, headed by Chief Justice of India N V Ramana, met on Tuesday to discuss the appointment of the next Chief Justice as the CJI is set to retire on August 26.

Besides the CJI, the collegium includes four other judges including Justices U.U. Lalit, D.Y. Chandrachud, Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Abdul Nazeer.

While the collegium did discuss potential candidates for appointments to the top court, it is yet to reach a consensus as some judges are, reportedly, of the view that they should wait till the next CJI takes over.

The collegium is likely to hold another meeting on Wednesday.

According to the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) on the appointment of judges and the CJI, the Law Minister is supposed to ask the outgoing Chief Justice to recommend their successor and the process normally starts a month before the retirement of the incumbent CJI.

The Supreme Court is reportedly yet to receive a 'note' or a 'letter' from the law ministry regarding recommendation for the next CJI.

The CJI should be “the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court considered fit to hold the office.”

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Justice U.U. Lalit, the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court, is next in line to be appointed the CJI, as per the MoP. He is expected to have a tenure of three months, retiring on November 8, 2022.

With CJI Ramana’s retirement, the apex court will have 30 judges against a sanctioned strength of 34.