The Supreme Court on Friday flagged fresh concern over the Centre’s approach of segregating names of candidates recommended by the collegium for appointment as high court judges, which the apex court said affects the seniority of judges in the long run and acts as a disincentive for many meritorious advocates to become judges.

A bench headed by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul also questioned the Union government’s delay in transferring judges from one high court to another. While the appointment of new judges involves a laborious process, particularly collection of intelligence and other discreet inputs about the credentials of a person sought to be recommended, no such consultative process is needed in the case of the transfer of judges.

The bench, which included Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Manoj Misra, was dealing with a batch of petitions challenging the delay by the central government in processing the various recommendations of the collegium for appointment/ transfer of judges and had sought initiation of contempt proceedings against the secretary in the law ministry.

Last month, the court had pulled up the NDA government over its continued intransigence in the appointment and transfer of 70 judges of high courts over the past nine months, including for the post of chief justice of the high court in Manipur. The name of Justice Sidharth Mridul was subsequently cleared by the Centre and he was on Friday sworn in as the chief justice of Manipur High Court.

Justice Kaul, the second seniormost member of the collegium after CJI D.Y. Chandrachud, had during the last hearing made it clear that the top court would not brook further delay, saying: “Today I am quiet because the attorney-general (R. Venkataramani) says he wants one week’s time. Next time I may not be quiet.”

The court had briefly adjourned the matter for further hearing to October 9 upon a request from the attorney-general for a week’s time to respond to the court’s anguish over the delay.

When the matter came up for hearing on Friday, the apex court expressed satisfaction that after the last hearing several names had been cleared by the government for appointment as judges, but added there were areas of concern.

“In the appointment process when you appoint one and not the other, the very premise of seniority gets disturbed and the incentive to join the bench also is lost,” Justice Kaul told additional solicitor-general Balbir Singh, appearing for the Centre.

For the past few years the Centre has been withholding the names of some prospective judges while clearing those of others, although the names were sent at one go by the collegium. As a result, relatively junior candidates had become judges before their seniors.