The Supreme Court collegium in a resolution said that “further deliberation” and “broad-based consideration” of names of High Court Chief Justices was required before sending its reiteration to the Centre on the elevation of Justice KM Joseph. The collegium of the five senior-most judges of the Supreme Court met on Friday to formalise the resolution, reported The Indian Express.

This comes after the collegium met on Wednesday and deferred its decision to reiterate Uttarakhand High Court Chief Justice KM Joseph’s elevation to the Supreme Court. This was the third time the panel had deferred its decision.

The resolution read, “Today [Wednesday], in the meeting of the collegium, a unanimous view was expressed that there should be further deliberation and broad-based consideration of the names of the Chief Justices as well as judges of the High Courts, which are at present not represented in the Supreme Court.” The meeting was attended by all five collegium members – Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Justices J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan Lokur and Kurian Joseph.

On May 11, the collegium had unanimously agreed to reiterate its recommendation to elevate Joseph. It said a discussion was required to send other names of Chief Justices for elevation to the Supreme Court.

The collegium had recommended Joseph and lawyer Indu Malhotra for elevation as Supreme Court judges in January. The law ministry notified Malhotra’s appointment on April 26, but refused to clear Joseph’s name, and asked the top court to reconsider its decision.