Things don't happen the way you want: Chief Justice on judge not being elevated

Chief Justice of India BR Gavai recalled an incident when Madras High Court Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala was not elevated to the Supreme Court, saying things don't happen the way one wants.

"At times, things don't happen the way you want. One of the reasons given was that the Bombay High Court has already got four judges in the Supreme Court. So, Justice Dipankar Dattagave a suggestion that until one of the judges in the Supreme Court retires, the Bombay High Court will not get any Chief Justice," he said at the Advocates' Association of Bombay High Court Bench in Maharashtra's Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar.

"We will postpone the position of Chief Justice of Bombay High Court so that the total quota of five does not exceed, but, unfortunately, I will not be speaking anything about that now because of the office I hold which restraints me. I will speak more about it after November 24, 2025," he said.

Chief Justice Gangapurwala retired last year and was sitting in the auditorium when CJI Gavai said, "Sanjay bhai, you have lost nothing by not coming to the Supreme Court. It is the loss of the Supreme Court. I did not want to say all this."

The Chief Justice said he promised to speak on the issue of appointment and elevation of judges in the Supreme Court Collegium once he retires. He said since he joined the Collegium, he had tried to ensure merit-based elevation of judges.

"There is a convention that we must not leak out the proceedings of the Collegium. I will not be doing anything that will amount to leaking out anything about the Collegium. But one thing I must share that after Justice PB Varale was elevated to the Supreme Court, we met in the morning and Justice Datta sat near me," he said.

"He said that the best Chief Justices that we have in the high courts should come to the Supreme Court. I must say that we took the idea seriously. I was in a position to convince most of the members of the Collegium or, rather, I would say that all the members of the Collegium that the best Chief Justice that India has should come to the Supreme Court," he added.

"I am happy to say that when I came into Collegium I tried to do merit-based elevation, be it in the Supreme Court or the High Court," he said.

CJI Gavai said while shortlisting names, one does not look at the caste creed of a person. "Only see how the candidate is, whether he qualifies or not, whether his integrity is good or not. He knows the laws well or not. Only that is seen," he said.

Mentioning Justice AS Chandurkar, who had been elevated from the Bombay High Court recently, CJI Gavai said he had a soft corner for him as he belongs to Nagpur, like him, and shared benches with him.

Talking about Justice Chandurkar's elevation, the Chief Justice said that it was a unanimous decision to elevate him after thinking about all issues.

The Bombay High Court has two benches in the state apart from the principal bench, one at Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and the other at Nagpur. However, over the years there has been a demand to create the Kolhapur bench as well.

CJI Gavai said he supported the demand of a Kolhapur bench as it was very difficult for the poor to afford the fees of Mumbai lawyers and travel all the way. "To get justice to the man standing at the last mile was important and thus, there has to be decentralisation of the judicial system," he mentioned.

The Chief Justice mentioned that his tenure was only about six months more and so said it wouldn't matter much if he mentioned an anecdote about an order that he had written about the control on the Sai Baba Trust by politicians.

- Ends