| A week after Chief Justice of India (CJI) T S Thakur expressed disappointment over the Centre's attitude in delaying the appointment of judges in high courts and Supreme Court, the Centre on Friday clarified that the delay was not on its part as the modified Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) has been sent to CJI for approval.
A close source from the ministry told dna that "the appointment were not done till December last year as there was a judicial order during the hearing of a plea which had challenged the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) and after the Apex Court has given a clearance, there has been no delay on our part."
Referring to the revised MoP, the sources said the document is in consonance with the directions given by a Supreme Court while striking down the Centre's Act which had proposed to repeal the decades-old collegium system.
As per the source, the system of appointing judges should be transparent, with accountability and should have a wider zone of consideration of candidates to be appointed to the bench.
Detailing the stand of the government, the sources said the Centre wants that names of candidates should come from all Supreme Court and high court judges. The judges of a particular high court should be at liberty to suggest names to the high court collegium, which will eventually take a call on whom to recommend for appointment. Same should apply for the Supreme Court.
The government had on August 3, sent a revised draft of the MoP to the collegium, reiterating certain clauses on which the judiciary had objections.
The sources said for transparency, there should be wider consultations like the Chief Ministers, advocates general, should have their say while giving candidates to the high court collegium of their respective states. Similarly, the Attorney General should be allowed to suggest names of candidates for the Supreme court.
While agreeing to the demand of the collegium that seniority-cum-merit and not merit-cum-seniority should be the criteria for selection, the government said that geographic reasons -- for example, too many judges from a
particular high court, inclusion of SCs, STs and women, outstanding performance of a judge and poor performance of a Chief Justice could be taken as grounds to overlook seniority.
Making its stand clear, the government left it to the judiciary to fix an age at which a person can become a judge, the government has made it clear that the age once fixed should not be flexible which will check
favouritism.
It also reiterated that the appraisal committees for Supreme Court and high courts.
The committees can have either retired or serving judges, which the Chief Justice of a High Court or the CJI in case of the apex court can decide. The committees will screen the candidates before the names are sent to the Supreme Court collegium for a final call.
This proposal has already rejected by the collegium.
According to ministry data. Since January and now, 52 judges have been appointed to the high courts, four to the Supreme Court and 110 additional judges in high courts have been made permanent judges.
Nine high court chief justices have been confirmed and 28 Transferred. A total of 250 proposals are in the pipeline, as per the data. |