THE TIMES OF INDIA, NEW DELHI SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2017 19TIMES NATION

AmitAnand.Choudhary@timesgroup.com

New Delhi: In an attempt toresolve the logjam over adop-tion of a procedure for ap-pointment of judges, the Su-preme Court on Fridaysought a fresh response fromthe government and askedsenior advocate K V Vishwa-nathan to assist it in adjudi-cating the vexed issue.

Observing that it is inpublic interest to finalise theMemorandum of Under-standing (MoP) at the earli-est, a bench of Justices A KGoel and U U Lalit issued no-tice to the attorney generalseeking reasons for the delayin finalising the procedure.

Referring to the apexcourt’s verdict in JusticeKarnan’s case — the KolkataHigh Court judge who wassentenced for contempt —the bench said there wasneed to revisit the appoint-ment process and provide forcorrective measures otherthan impeachment.

With the MoP not being fi-nalised in the last two yearsdue to differences between

the Centre and SC collegium,the court decided to inter-vene to try and end the dead-lock and pave way for timelyand orderly selection ofjudges for higher judiciary.

A Constitution bench inOctober 2015 struck down theNational Judicial Appoint-ments Commission and in De-cember 2015 directed the Cen-tre to frame a new MoP in con-sultation with the CJI, whowas to act in accordance withthe unanimous view of themembers of the collegium.

But the Centre and thecollegium were not able toagree with both sides refus-ing to budge over stated posi-tions on the clauses such asthe one on national securitythat allows the governmentto reject a name on such sen-

sitive grounds.“Even though no time

limit was fixed by this courtfor finalisation of the MOP,the issue cannot linger on forindefinite period. The orderof this court is dated Decem-ber 16, 2015 and thus morethan one year and tenmonths have already goneby,” the bench said.

“We also find substance inthe submission that the MoPmust provide for a mecha-nism so that appointments ofregular chief justices of highcourts are not unduly de-layed,” the court said, so thatappointments take place bythe time vacancies arise.

The court passed the or-der on a plea filed by advo-cate R P Luthra seeking itsdirection to the Centre andSC administration to final-ise MoP. Although the pet-itioner also suggested thatall appointments made inthe SC and HCs subsequentto December 2015 be quashedas there was no MoP, thebench turned down his plea.He approached the apexcourt after his plea was dis-missed by the Delhi HC.

Court Issues Notice To AG, Appoints Amicus

SC moves to end fighton MoP to pick judges

TO RESOLVE A VEXED ISSUE

New Delhi: The SupremeCourt gave its nod on Fridayto new norms for worship-ping at the ancient Mahaka-leshwar Jyotirlinga templein Ujjain city of Madhya Pra-desh, including allowing on-ly 500 ml of reverse osmosiswater for the ceremony.

The apex court approvedeight points of the resolutionpassed by the temple man-agement committee in con-sonance with the recommen-dation of an expert commit-tee of officials of the Archeo-logical Survey of India andGeological Survey of India.

A bench of Justices ArunMishra and L Nageswara Raosaid the recomendations ofthe expert committee need tobe implemented to preservethe lingam (symbol of the dei-ty). As per the new approvednorms, the devotees would bepermitted a fixed amount of

water measuring 500ml in anappropriate small pot per per-son for Jalabhishek (worship-ping by offering water). It saidthat the water for Jalabhishekshall be taken from the Re-verse Osmosis (RO) machineinstalled during Simhastha(religious fair), 2016, for which

aconnection shall be providednear the sanctum sanctorum.

The new resolution saysthat from now on, during theBhasma Aarti, the lingamwould be fully covered withdry cotton cloth during theprayers. Curbs were also pla-ced for Abhishek and only upto 1.25 litres of milk or pan-chamrut (mixture of honey,liquid jaggery, milk, yogurtand ghee) per devotee shallbe allowed. After the Jalabh-ishek which concludes at5pm every day, the lingamwill be cleaned and dried tominimise water content. PTI

A devotee can use only 500ml of ROwater on Shivling of Ujjain temple: SC

New Delhi: Union law minis-ter Ravi Shankar Prasad haswritten to the chief justices ofall high courts asking them toexpedite the recruitment ofcourt managers, a separatecadre of officers to assist thejudges in ‘streamlining courtadministration’ and free judg-es for adjudicating cases.

The letter says the schemeof appointing court managerswas available since 2010 andan allocation of Rs 300 crorewas made for the high courtsto appoint such officers. How-ever, the minister has pointedout how the reluctance of thehigh courts has left thescheme close to failure withless than 15% of the allocatedmoney spent for this purpose.

Through these court man-agers, the government is plan-ning to create a separate cadreof officers in states to look af-ter management of lowercourts so that judges can con-centrate on judicial functionsand not get bogged down withadministrative work. The 13thFinance Commission had al-located Rs 300 crore between2010-15 for the lower courts toappoint court managers.

Recruit courtmanagers tohelp judges,

govt tells HCs TIMES NEWS NETWORK

The SC approved eight points of the resolutionpassed by the temple management committee inconsonance with the recommendation of an expert committee of officials of the ArcheologicalSurvey of India and Geological Survey of India