The second senior-most judge of the Supreme Court, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, on Friday recused from hearing a batch of PILs challenging the repeated extensions being granted to Enforcement Directorate director Sanjay Kumar Mishra in violation of Supreme Court orders.

The development comes a day after the Centre issued a fresh notification granting the third extension to Mishra, extending his tenure till November 18, 2023, “or until further orders”.

His second extension ended on Friday. When the batch of PILs came up for consideration, Justice Kaul, who was sitting with Justice A.S. Oka, said he was recusing from the matter.

“I cannot take up this matter. Let the matter be placed before another bench,” Justice Kaul said while directing that the matter be placed before the Chief Justice of India “for appropriate orders”.

Justice Kaul did not give any reason. Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, during the course of the brief hearing, complained that the government had on Thursday come out with a fresh notification extending Mishra’s tenure.

The petitioners included advocate Manohar Lal Sharma, Congress leaders Randeep Singh Surjewala and Jaya Thakur, Trinamul leaders Mahua Moitra and Saket Gokhale, and civil liberties activist Vineet Narain.

The petitioners have challenged the Centre’s decision to grant a fresh extension to Mishra through an office order dated November 17, 2021, on the ground that it had been done despite the Supreme Court ruling that the officer shall not be granted any further extension.

The Centre had amended the CVC Act to give a maximum extension of up to five years to an incumbent ED director.

On September 8 last year, a bench of Justices L. Nageswara Rao (since retired) and B.R. Gavai had ruled that the government can extend the tenure of ED officers who have retired only in “rare and exceptional cases” to complete investigations or other pressing commitments.