The Intelligence Bureau’s advice to the central government to stall lawyer Saurabh Kirpal’s elevation as judge to the Delhi High Court is n...
The Intelligence Bureau’s advice to the central government to stall lawyer Saurabh Kirpal’s elevation as judge to the Delhi High Court is nothing but a homophobic alibi.
Kirpal is a respected Delhi High Court lawyer with a slew of successful cases to his credit. He was unanimously recommended for elevation by a Delhi High Court collegium as early as October 2017. However, the Delhi High Court collegium’s recommendations were referred to a Supreme Court collegium, comprising Chief Justice of India SA Bobde, Justice NV Ramana and Justice RF Nariman. The Supreme Court collegium did not routinely approve of Kirpal’s elevation, as it does in most other cases. Instead, it deferred the matter for the fourth time and wrote to Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad to seek his opinion.
Kirpal, a gay man, believes that the three-member Supreme Court collegium did not take a decision on his elevation, but referred the matter to the central government, on account of his sexual orientation. The central government’s unwillingness to elevate Kirpal is based on an Intelligence Bureau report. In April 2019, former CJI Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Bobde and Justice Ramana discussed the IB report and kept Kirpal’s judgeship in abeyance.
Ostensibly, the Intelligence Bureau’s advice to...
