R Sedhuraman
Legal Correspondent
New Delhi, May 1
The National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) will endanger the
independence of the judiciary by making the Chief Justice of India
accountable to the Union Law Minister, PIL petitioners against the
judicial panel contended in the Supreme Court today.This in turn will affect the basic structure of the Constitution under which judiciary’s independence was a crucial element, the petitioners argued while concluding their contentions before a 5-member Constitution Bench headed by Justice JS Khehar.
The Bench said it would hear arguments next week in favour of NJAC by the Centre, states and others. The other members of the Bench are Justices J Chelameswar, MB Lokur, Kurian Joseph and AK Goel.
Among those who argued today were senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan. Counsel for the petitioners noted that according to the objects and reasons of the NJAC Bill the six-member commission, including the CJI and the Law Minister, the judicial panel was aimed at ensuring “greater transparency, accountability and objectivity” in the appointment of judges to the SC and high courts.
“Who is accountable to whom? Is the CJI accountable to the Law Minister or the two eminent persons who would also be on the 6-member panel,” they wanted to know.
The Bench also acknowledged that the wordings of the NJAC Act and the connected 99th Constitution Amendment Act were rather confusing, particularly the expression that the Commission would play a meaningful role to the judiciary.
The Bench, meanwhile, issued show-cause notice to advocate ML Sharma for using abusive language against lawmakers in his PIL challenging the validity of the Commission. It directed Sharma to file his response within a week, explaining why he could not be barred from filing PILs in the SC in view of his intemperate language against politicians.
The petitioners pleaded that the general public, particularly the litigants fighting cases against the government, would lose faith in the judiciary if judges were appointed by a panel that included the law minister as the government was the biggest litigant accounting for the maximum number of cases pending with the judiciary, they pleaded
Besides the Chief Justice of India (CJI) who would chair the NJAC and the minister, the commission’s other members are two senior most SC judges and two eminent persons to be nominated by a panel of the CJI, Prime Minister and Leader of Opposition/single largest party in the Lok Sabha.
The Centre for PIL (CPIL) noted that NJAC would have four ex-officio members — CJI, two SC judges and law minister — who could devote only a few hours a week to the panel.
Only full time members could do justice to appointing about 100 judges every year for which at least 1,000 persons would have to be considered by going into their merits and antecedents, he explained.
