A month on, the Supreme Court collegium is yet to respond to the Union law ministry’s letter on the necessity to have a search-cum-evaluation committee (SEC) for bringing in more transparency and objectivity in the process of judicial appointment, according to information shared with Parliament.
Responding to a question raised by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Sushil Kumar Modi, law minister Kiren Rijiju told the Rajya Sabha that the government wrote to Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud on January 6, and “a response from the Supreme Court is awaited.”
In his reply, Rijju added that the government has been repeatedly imploring the top court to put in place the panel to shortlist names eligible for judgeship by inserting this mechanism under the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP), which guides the executive and the judiciary in the matters of appointment of judges in constitutional courts.
“The said committees will be entrusted to prepare a panel of eligible candidates from which the respective collegiums will make recommendation,” said the minister, pointing out a similar suggestion made by the government in its earlier communications in 2017 and 2021 too, “but the Supreme Court did not agree to set up such committees.”
As reported by HT on January 16, the January 6 letter underlined that the government is an “important stakeholder in the process of appointment of judges in the Supreme Court and high courts” and therefore, its views should also find a place in preparation for the panel of names who are eligible for being appointed as judges of constitutional courts.
It further stated that a representative of the Union government should be a member of SEC for appointment of judges in the Supreme Court and chief justices of high courts. SECs for appointment of judges in the high court should also have a nominee of the state government, as per the letter.
“SECs will be entrusted to prepare a panel of eligible candidates from which the respective collegiums will make recommendations…the collegium at appropriate level may address the above requirement of drawing up a panel of eligible candidates from above mentioned sources and draw up their proceedings by rendering requisite reasons and thereafter send the proposal to the government with requisite documents,” said the letter.
No proposal on a new law for judges’ appointment
On Thursday, Rijiju also informed the House that there is no proposal to bring a new law on judicial appointments. The minister’s reply came on a query by TMC MP Jawahar Sircar, who sought to know the power and procedure of appointing judges, and the recent stand-off between the government and the judiciary over several appointments recommended by the collegium.
In 2014, the NDA government passed the National Judicial Appointment Commission (NJAC) Act, setting up an alternative system for the appointment of judges to constitutional courts which also proposed a greater role for the government in the process. But, in 2015, the Supreme Court ruled that the law was unconstitutional as it sought to tinker with the independence of the judiciary.
Over the last few months, an executive-judiciary tussle has escalated with Rijiju and Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar criticising the collegium system of appointing judges over concerns of transparency and assumption of authority by the Supreme Court through its judgments to appoint judges.
The top court, in a series of judicial proceedings, responded with reminders to the government that the collegium system is the law of the land that must be followed by the government “to a T”, while severely reproaching the Centre for sitting over a large number of collegium’s recommendations without specifying reasons.
Sircar, on Thursday, also raised a supplementary question relating to the recent appointment of advocate LC Victoria Gowri as a Madras high court judges, asking if clearing a person accused of hate speech and bias against minorities was an “appropriate one”.
Leader of the House and BJP MP Piyush Goyal intervened to say that it may not be proper to cast aspersions on a judge who has been appointed through a process.
Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar, too, asked Sircar to be “delicate” in his comments on the judiciary. “The three wings of the state – legislature, executive and judiciary – they have to act in tandem and togetherness. We must have mutual respect for them. All three have to ultimately get together to fructify our goals. When it comes to the judiciary, with respect to which a judgment of the highest court has already come, I’m sure that issue should be kept away,” he said.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a plea for quashing the appointment of advocate Gowri as a judge in the Madras high court and remarked that asking the collegium to review its proposal could lead to a “breakdown” of the system. Wary of setting a “very wrong precedent” by assessing the suitability of a candidate already cleared by the collegium for judgeship, the court emphasised that personal and political views of a private person or a lawyer cannot be an impediment per se in his or her appointment as a judge.
