New Delhi: The Supreme Court will frame guidelines and streamline the procedure for appointment of High Court judges to ensure that vacancies are filled as and when they arise.

A Bench consisting of Chief Justice Y.K. Sabharwal and Justice C.K. Thakker gave this indication while hearing on Friday two petitions filed by the Madras High Court Advocates Association and its president, S. Prabhakaran and the Revenue Bar Association and its president Aravind Datar for a direction to the Centre to expedite appointments.

The Bench asked K.K. Venugopal, senior counsel for the MHAA, and others to give their suggestions for plugging loopholes in the existing procedure to Attorney General Milon K. Banerjee. The Centre would respond to the suggestions during the next hearing in February 2006.

Earlier, the Attorney-General said the government had on Thursday issued a notification on the appointment of 17 judges to the Madras High Court. The Law Minister had written to all High Court Chief Justices, asking them to send their recommendations for appointments within two weeks.

The Chief Justice told Mr. Venugopal, "you have succeeded." He replied: "But for the petition by the association, the appointments would not have come [about]."

Counsel said, "in making the appointments the seniority recommended by the apex court collegium has been altered, at least one of them who was said to be in the top is now ranked eleventh." But the CJI said this issue was not before the court and "let us not go into that aspect now." Mr. Venugopal said, "there are apex court judgments fixing a time frame for appointment of judges. But this is not being adhered to. Further, as per the procedure the process of appointments should begin six months before a vacancy is due to arise."

The CJI said the issues whether a senior advocate should get precedence over a junior and whether persons under 45 could be recommended for judge post required consideration. "There cannot be any watertight compartments in such matters. In some cases, 41 or 42 will be the correct age. If it is too late, the person concerned may not be willing to become judge and it will be a loss for the institution."

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