Monday, July 11 2005 15:53 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The Supreme Court today (July 11, 2005) sought the Centre's views on a public interest litigation alleging that continuance of Justice Nagendra Rai as Chief Justice (CJ) of Patna High Court for nearly a year was a breach of State policy not to have a local Judge as the CJ.

A Bench comprising Chief Justice R C Lahoti, Justice C K Thakker and Justice P K Balasubramanyan asked petitioner Basant Kumar Choudhary's counsel Prasant Bhushan to give a copy of the petition to Central Government standing counsel P Parameswaran.

While posting the matter for further hearing on July 18, the Bench sought presence of either the Attorney General or the Solicitor General during the hearing.

The petitioner said Justice Rai was continuing as the acting Chief Justice of Patna High Court from July 22 last in breach of State policy of having a Chief Justice from outside the State.

He said, "The apex Court in S P Gupta vs Union of India has clearly held that the policy of having Chief Justices in every High Court from outside the State is constitutionally valid, good, reasonable and also in public interest."

Stating that Justice Rajiv S Dhawan retired on July 22, 2004, the petitioner said Justice Rai, who is from Bihar, has been continuing as acting Chief Justice since then.

Making the Centre and Bihar Government as respondents, Choudhary said, "The actions of the respondents in continuing with an acting Chief Justice of the same State for a such long period is not only violative of the State policy but also arbitrary and violative of Article 14 (right to equality) of the Constitution.