The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to entertain an oral mentioning challenging the promotion process of Civil Judges to the cadre of District Judges in Maharashtra, reiterating that the petitioner must first approach the Bombay High Court.

The petitioner contended that the selection process had disregarded the principles laid down by the Supreme Court in R.D. Mehta and sought urgent intervention. It was submitted that the matter had earlier been mentioned before the Chief Justice of India, who had advised the petitioner to move the High Court.

However, Senior Advocate Mennakshi Arora argued that a peculiar difficulty had since come to light. According to her, the promotion process had been overseen when Justice Shree Chandrashekhar (then Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court and now a judge of the Supreme Court) was heading the High Court, while the selection exercise was conducted under the supervision of the present Acting Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court.

The counsel suggested that this made it difficult to seek relief before the High Court. The Bench was not persuaded. The Court responded:

The petitioner submitted that the Acting Chief Justice had been involved in the selection process and therefore the matter stood on a different footing. The Court, however, expressed confidence that the High Court would deal with the issue appropriately. The petitioner also argued that no writ petition was presently pending before the High Court and that the challenge had already been instituted before the Supreme Court. The Bench of Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice Joymalya Bagchi nevertheless insisted that the proper course was to pursue remedies before the High Court.

The Bench further clarified that it would neither advise authorities on the administrative side nor interfere with the ongoing promotion exercise.

The Court accordingly declined to entertain the request for intervention.