(1.) SRI Alagiriswami, the first respondent, to this petition, was appointed an additional Judge of this High Court on 8th August 1966, On the 11th August 1966, this petition seeking the issue of a quo warranto calling upon the first respondent to show under what authority he holds the office in question was filed. The petitioner is a member of the High Court Bar and has been a practitioner before this Court for the last 34 years. He claims that as a member of the Bar, he is vitally interested in the purity of the administration of justice and for reasons that would be apparent from what follows, he finds it to be his duty to move this Court in this matter.
(2.) ACCORDING to the petitioner, Sri Alagiriswami does not possess the qualification prescribed by Article 217 (2) (b) of the Constitutions. Secondly, it is contended that the appointment has been made virtually in the teeth of a Bench decision of this court in which on an earlier occasion the property of the appointment of Sri alagiriswami as Government Pleader was brought into question and it was held by this Court that that appointment was an act of favouritism intended to sphere the first respondent to a High Court Judgeship through the back door. Though this court felt powerless to interfere with the first respondent's appointment as government Pleader, the decision of that bench established that in making that appointment, the Government was moved by extraneous consideration, principally that of conferring upon the first respondent a qualification solely for the purpose of enabling him to become a Judge of the High Court. It is said accordingly that the appointment of the first respondent as a Judge is the fulfillment of the scheme engineered by those in authority when the first respondent was some years ago appointed as Government Pleader, and on this ground his appointment is attacked as affected by mala fides and is fraud on power.
(3.) THERE are two grounds broadly speaking that have been amplified in the lengthy affidavit accompanying the petition. I do not think it necessary to set out the contents of the affidavit in any great detail; but I shall refer to such portions thereof as may be required.