Supreme Court refuses to entertain Himachal Pradesh judicial officer’s plea against Collegium picks for HC judgeship
The Supreme Court on Monday (June 22, 2026) declined to entertain a petition filed by a judicial officer from Himachal Pradesh challenging the recommendation made
The Supreme Court on Monday (June 22, 2026) declined to entertain a petition filed by a judicial officer from Himachal Pradesh challenging the recommendation made by the Chief Justice of India () Surya Kant-led Collegium to appoint certain judicial officers junior to him as judges of the Himachal Pradesh High Court. The court observed that recommendations relating to appointments to constitutional courts are based on the Collegium’s subjective assessment and are amenable to only limited judicial review in exceptional circumstances. The Supreme Court Collegium, headed by Kant and comprising the four senior-most judges of the court, had on June 2 recommended the elevation of three judicial officers — Chirag Bhanu Singh, Bhupesh Sharma and Yogesh Jaswal — as judges of the Himachal Pradesh High Court. Arvind Malhotra, who is serving as principal judge of the family court in Dharamshala, moved the top court contending that despite a September 2024 direction of the Supreme Court requiring the High Court Collegium to reconsider his candidature along with that of another judicial officer, it had instead recommended officers junior to him. Senior-most judicial officer Appearing for Mr. Malhotra, senior advocate Balbir Singh submitted before a Bench comprising Justices B.V. Nagarathna and Joymalya Bagchi that his client had been called for an interaction in September 2025 and asked to furnish certain documents.
However, he said that in May this year, the High Court Collegium forwarded the names of officers junior to him to the Supreme Court Collegium for elevation, even though his client is the senior-most judicial officer in the State. The Bench, however, pointed out that there was nothing on record to indicate that the High Court Collegium had formally rejected Mr. Malhotra’s candidature. “There is no rejection of your candidature at this stage. Please wait for some time,” Justice Nagarathna observed, adding that Mr. Malhotra still had nearly a decade of service left and that further vacancies in the High Court were likely to arise in the future. The court also observed that seniority alone does not confer a right to be recommended for elevation and underlined that it could not sit in judgment over the Collegium’s assessment while considering appointments to constitutional courts. “These are matters for the subjective satisfaction of the Collegium... Can, on the judicial side, the Supreme Court say to the Collegium, ‘You do this, you do that, you consider his name’? It can’t be done. It is beyond the scope of the jurisdiction,” Justice Nagarathna, who is also a member of the Supreme Court Collegium, remarked.
The BriefWire