[dropcap]T[/dropcap]HE Gujarat High Court Advocates Association (GHCAA) has decided to file a writ petition in the Supreme Court of India against the inaction of the Central Government in appointing Justice Akil Kureshi as the Chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court as per the recommendation of the Supreme Court Collegium.
The resolution passed by the GHCAA on June 25, 2019, comes in the wake Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad’s disinclination to meet a delegation of the GHCAA to discuss the issue.
The Central Government has been dragging its feet on the appointment of Justice Kureshi as the Chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court. On June 10, 2019, the GHCAA had resolved to form a committee of ten advocates to meet the Union Law Minister to press for a notification to enforce the Collegium’s recommendation.
“..to the utter shock and surprise of the Bar, Justice Akil Kureshi was not appointed as Chief Justice of Madhya Pradesh HC on May 22, 2019, along with Justice DN Patel as Chief Justice of Delhi HC and instead, Justice Ravi Shanker Jha was appointed as Acting Chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh HC with effect from June 10. This is clearly uncalled for interference by the executive,” the GHCAA had said in its resolution on June 10, 2019.
Justice Kureshi is presently a judge in the Bombay High Court with the Gujarat High Court as his parent high court.
As a judge in the Gujarat High Court, Justice Kureshi had remanded the Bharatiya Janata Party chief and current Home Minister, Amit Shah to police custody for two days in the Sohrabbuddin murder case and in 2011, had also upheld the decision of the Governor to appoint Justice RA Mehta as Gujarat’s Lokayukta, a move that was challenged by the then Narendra Modi-led government in the state.
In November 2018, when the then Chief Justice of Gujarat High Court R Subhash Reddy was elevated as a judge to the Supreme Court, Justice Kureshi, who was the senior-most judge after Justice Reddy, should have assumed the Chief Justice’s office as a matter of practice. However, he was transferred to the Bombay High Court and made the number four-judge there, pursuant to the Supreme Court Collegium’s recommendation.
The GHCAA had at that time opposed the decision of the Collegium and had gone on a day-long strike, following which, Justice Kureshi was appointed the Acting Chief Justice of the Gujarat High Court for two weeks until his date of joining the Bombay High Court.
