The highest court of the land was chiding the Centre for failing to appoint over 200 high court judges its collegium had recommended in the past eight months.
One complete floor has been closed for the past three months at Karnataka High Court, Chief Justice T.S. Thakur said, because of a shortage of judges.
"Earlier, there were judges but no court halls; today we have more court halls but there are no judges to occupy them," Justice Thakur told attorney-general Mukul Rohatgi. "You can as well close down the courts. Close down justice."
Officials said the apex court had since February this year recommended 311 judges for appointment but the NDA government had appointed only around 80, drawing repeated censure from Justice Thakur.
The stalemate continues despite an informal meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Chief Justice last month.
"It should not be anybody's ego," Justice Thakur said today without taking names. "We don't want one institution clashing with another. But we want to save this institution (judiciary) from any onslaught. We have been working with patience and tolerance."
Sources later said that resistance from some members of the collegium to a senior minister's nominee had led to efforts to slow down the appointment process by portraying some judges as "anti-government".
The legal sources said that it would be condemnable if the administration was dragging its feet because some judgments had gone against the NDA government.
Relations between the judiciary and the Centre had plunged to rock bottom after a Constitution bench last October quashed a legislation that gave the government a say in judges' appointments and transfers, now the sole domain of the judges-only collegium.
On April 24, Justice Thakur had fought back tears while telling the Prime Minister, who was in the audience, that the success of his Make-in-India campaign and economic policies hinged on the "efficacy" of the judicial system.
On August 12, he had said any further delay in appointments could "shut down" the courts and threatened to break the "logjam" through a never-before judicial order, exposing members of the government to possible contempt.
On August 15, he had regretted that the Prime Minister's Independence Day address contained not a word on the piling judges' vacancies.
At one point today, the bench, which included Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and L. Nageswara, wanted to summon the secretary in the Prime Minister's Office and the secretary in the law and justice ministry. But Rohatgi requested that no such notices be sent and promised that the government would look into the matter.
Responding to the court's queries, Rohatgi said that of the eight judges the collegium had approved for Allahabad High Court, the Centre had cleared two and was issuing their warrants of appointment.
An unimpressed Chief Justice cited how Allahabad High Court had only 77 judges against the sanctioned 165.
Rohatgi said the appointments were stuck also because the collegium and the Centre were yet to (jointly) finalise the memorandum of procedure (MoP) - the rules guiding the appointments process.
After the October 2015 verdict, the top court had as a concession asked the Centre to redraft the memorandum, subject to the collegium's approval. The Centre has since then been sending query after query to the collegium on the subject.
Today, the court pointed out that last October's judgment had authorised the collegium to continue with the appointments process independently of the MoP revision.
"Earlier, you committed yourself to processing the names without insisting on finalisation of the policy - (the) MoP has nothing to do with it," Justice Thakur said.
"Now you are changing the argument. You can't hold up the process just because the MoP is not finalised."
Rohatgi said the government had reservations over some of the names cleared by the collegium.
But Justice Thakur said: "You can't bring the entire institution to a grinding halt. If there is a problem with the names, send them back to us. We are all human. If there is a mistake from our side, we will rectify it."
The next hearing is on November 7