- (1.) It is brought to our notice today that all the respondents have now been served. Three newly constituted High Courts, namely, Tripura, Manipur and Meghalaya High Courts though have not been formally impleaded as parties take notice of the pendency of the matter. In fact, Ms. Sneha Kalita, standing counsel for the High Court of Manipur, Mr. Sanjai Kumar Pathak, learned counsel for the High Court of Meghalaya and Mr. Naresh K. Sharma, learned counsel for the High Court of Tripura, have appeared today and undertakes to enter their appearance within two weeks. Prima facie, we are of the opinion, to give appropriate further directions in terms of the prayer in the writ petition, certain data is required to be collected from various States, Union of India and the concerned High Courts. Such an exercise is possible only if a body competent to collect a data is brought into existence, as it was done earlier by the orders of this Court in appointing the Shetty Commission.
(2.) All the learned counsel appearing for the various parties including the learned Additional Solicitor General representing Union of India also agree for such course of action. The only question which remains is: what should be the terms of reference of such a Commission. Learned Additional Solicitor General submits that, by the next date of hearing, the Union of India will come forward with draft of the terms of reference which, in their view, would be appropriate in the context of the controversy in hand. We permit the Union of India to place such draft terms of reference by the next date of hearing. Preferably such terms of reference be supplied to all the learned counsel appearing for the various States and the writ petitioner, at least a week before the next date of hearing, to enable the respondents to examine the proposals and to come up with any suggestion which may be appropriate in the context of the matter.
(3.) List the matter on 19th April, 2017 for appropriate further directions.;