The bench that as mandated by law, the State has forwarded the ‘shortlisted’ names for the post of chairperson of the Appellate Tribunal, to the office of the Chief Justice.
The Gujarat government Monday assured the Gujarat High Court that it will soon fill the vacancies in Gujarat Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) and the Gujarat Real Estate Appellate Tribunal (Appellate Tribunal [Nipun Praveen Singhvi vs State of Gujarat].
This was after a division bench of Chief Justice (CJ) Sunita Agarwal and Justice Aniruddha Mayee pulled up the State after noting that despite a clear order passed by the Court in 2021 and an undertaking given by the State, the government failed to make appointments to RERA and Appellate Tribunal.
“Its been more than two years now, what have you done? Nothing. You created all these tribunals to ease the burden of this Court. But you cannot keep the appointments at bay. You are only making people of Gujarat remedy-less, that is it,” an irked CJ remarked.
The remark was made in response to a request by Government Pleader Manisha Luvkumar-Shah to come with instructions on the issue pertaining to the appointments of the chairperson and one technical member of the Appellate Tribunal.
The Government Pleader told the bench that the chairperson for the Appellate Tribunal would be an ex-judge and that the State is finalising the name for the said post.
To this, the CJ replied,
“Don’t you have judges? Complete the process at the earliest. You have done nothing for the past two three years. You cannot defend inaction and keep silence.”
The bench, therefore, passed over the matter till recess for Lukumar-Shah to return with ‘written instructions.’
After the lunch break, Advocate General (AG) Kamal Trivedi appeared for the State and told the bench that as mandated by law, the State has forwarded the ‘shortlisted’ names for the post of chairperson to the office of the Chief Justice of the High Court.
“By evening the names would be placed before your ladyship, for consultation,” the AG submitted.
The Court accepted the statement and adjourned the hearing in the matter for a week.
Regarding appointments of the members to RERA, Luvkumar-Shah told the judges that the ‘search committee’ has shortlisted certain names and the same would be placed before a ‘select committee’ which will finalise the appointments.
Shah sought two weeks time to place the recommendations of the search committee before the select committee.
However, the bench was not convinced with the submission and said that the State was giving excuses.
“You are not serious about the issue and only come up with an excuse. Give us a timeline as to when will you place on record the names recommended by the search committee before the select committee? We are not going to hear any excuses,” the bench observed.
To this, Luvkumar-Shah submitted that as directed earlier, her officers are present in the court and that appointments will be made within two weeks.
“We don’t want to see their (officers’) faces. We want to know what they have done,” the bench said while adjourning the matter.
