Chief Justice of India (CJI) S H Kapadia is learnt to have sent back names of five lawyers recommended for elevation as Judge by the Delhi High Court collegium.

The names had been recommended by the collegium of which the then Delhi High Court Chief Justice A P Shah was a member. In fact, the names had been recommended with just a few days left for Shah to retire.

Sources told The Indian Express that the CJI has asked the HC collegium, which is headed by new Chief Justice

Dipak Misra, to reconsider the recommendations.

Sources said apart from five lawyers  Abhinav Vasisht, Rajiv Virmani, Anusuya Salwan, Meenakshi Arora and Maninder Acharya  for elevation as judges, the HC collegium had also recommended the name of a District and Sessions judge for elevation to the HC Bench.

While senior functionaries of the Supreme Court as well as the Delhi High Court remained tightlipped on the issue, sources in the Union Ministry of Law and Justice confirmed the CJI's move. CJI Kapadia has reportedly written to Law Minister M Veerappa Moily informing him of his decision to send back the recommendations.

"The new collegium will reconsider the names sent by the previous collegium and, if it deems fit, make changes. It may even drop some names," said a source.

Author of many landmark judgments, including the one that ruled the office of CJI as within the purview of the Right to Information Act and another that de-criminalised consensual homosexual sex between adults, Shah retired on February 12, but not before expressing his "sense of hurt" at being denied the opportunity to sit in the Supreme Court. Kapadia had been part of the collegium that finalised the names of judges for elevation to the apex court.

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