The Madras High Court on Tuesday dismissed a public interest litigation petition which had challenged the appointment of its former judge S. Baskaran as the chairman of Tamil Nadu State Human Rights Commission (SHRC). The court held that the petition was utterly misconceived, and judicial time could not be wasted any further on adjudicating upon the case filed against the appointment.
Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy rejected the contention of the PIL petitioner S. Logeshwar of Chennai that there was lack of transparency in appointment since the vacancy was not advertised and applications were not called for from eligible candidates. The judges pointed out that the statute does not require any advertisement since only sitting or retired judges could be appointed.
The first Division Bench also pointed out that the selection was made by a committee chaired by the Chief Minister and comprising of the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, the Leader of the Opposition, the Home Minister and others. “As long as the appointee fulfils the eligibility criteria, that would suffice. This is because, unlike ordinary appointments, these are crucial posts where appointments are primarily made by invitation,” the Bench said.
The Bench, concurred with the submissions of Advocate General Vijay Narayan, and went on to state: “The Selection Committee may discuss such names as they may choose and even if there is no advertisement issued, the process cannot be flawed. From the counter affidavit of the State, it appears that the selection was made from a list of two retired Chief Justices and 39 retired Judges of this Court, all of whom fulfilled the eligibility criteria.”
