LUDIANA: The Punjab Sikh Lawyers Council (PSLC) described as preposterous the manner in which Mr. J.V. Gupta has been made Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
The PSLC General Secretary DS. Gill in a statement said that Mr. Gupta had been rewarded for his allegiance to the R.S.S and for undergoing a jail term during the Emergency.
Mr. J.V Gupta was first made Acting Chief Justice and then Chief Justice only to bypass the norm that a Chief Justice should not be posted to his home High Court unless his retirement is due within a year,
The Council activist Mr. Gill also objected to the list of candidates submitted by Mr. J.V Gupta to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India for appointment as Judges of the High Court on the ground that as Acting Chief Justice he should have waited for his regular appointment, As Chief Justice also he should have refrained from making any such recommendation because he could not ordinarily be refrained from making any such recommendation because he could not ordinarily be retained as Chief Justice of this High Court.
All the candidates, except for two, by Mr. Gupta belong to the Hindu community, who, in Punjab do not constitute even 20 percent of the State’s population. The two Sikhs preferred by Mr. Gupta are known Congress (I) men. Mr. R.S. Mongia worked as Junior to the then Congress I advocate, Mr. Kuldip Singh, while Mr. H.S. Bedi was Advocate General of the worst Congress regime headed by S.S. Ray added Mr. Gill. Gupta has lived up to the UN broken tradition of not recommending any Sikh whether Congressman from Haryana, the lawyers added.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 1, 1990
