Collegium yields to Union government’s ‘positive’ reiteration of recommendation for Gujarat HC judge

In March 2023, the collegium, which had Justices Kaul and Joseph in it at that time, had returned the recommendation to be considered at an appropriate stage. Now the stage is set, it seems.

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ON Tuesday, the Supreme Court Collegium accepted the request of the Union government to consider "positively" the appointment of advocate Pranav Shailesh Trivedi as judge of the Gujarat High Court.

The collegium, which comprises Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dr D.Y. Chandrachud and Justices Sanjiv Khanna and B.R. Gavai, has now recalled earlier recommendation deferring the elevation of Trivedi.

On March 2, 2023, the collegium, then comprised CJI Chandrachud and Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and K.M. Joseph, had decided to return the name of Trivedi to the Chief Justice of the High Court of Gujarat for being considered at the appropriate stage. 

The collegium never made this recommendation public until now when it was revealed in a resolution passed yesterday that his name had been returned to the High Court collegium.

However, the reasons weighed with the collegium to return Trivedi's name are still not known since the collegium has not made them public.

However, what is available in the public domain is that the Union government had referred back the file to the Supreme Court Collegium for positive consideration of the proposal to appoint Trivedi as judge of the Gujarat High Court.

The collegium has also not disclosed the date on which the government had sent it the file.

Now, the collegium has stated that it has reconsidered its earlier recommendation in light of the reasons recorded by the department of justice in the file.

However, what those 'reasons' are has still not been made public by the collegium.

The collegium states that it made further enquiries to come to a definite conclusion as to the suitability of Trivedi. 

The collegium states that the candidate was enrolled with the State Bar Council in the year 2000 and has put in 23 years of practice at the High Court of Gujarat.

His area of practice includes taxation, civil, criminal, constitutional, labour, company and service cases. He is specialised in taxation and criminal law.

He qualifies in terms of age and income criteria and has a well-established practice. He has appeared in sufficient cases resulting in 68 reported judgments in matters argued by him.

The collegium thus concludes that it must endorse the observations made in the file by the department of justice while referring back to the above proposal for positive consideration.

It is again not clear what those observations are that the collegium has endorsed now.

Eventually though, the collegium has resolved to recommend Trivedi's appointment as a judge of the Gujarat High Court.