NEW DELHI, Nov 26: The Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on Wednesday orally said the court would consider a plea seeking to revive the National Judicial Appointments Commission and bring an end to the Collegium system of judicial appointments to the constitutional courts of the country.
The plea, which arraigns the Chief Justice of India and even the Supreme Court Collegium as respondents along with the Union Government and a clutch of political parties, submitted the striking down of the NJAC by the apex court was a “great wrong because it meant substitution of the will of the people by the opinion of the four judges.”
The oral mentioning of the application was made by advocate Mathews J. Nedumpara, who has sought permission to argue the case in-person, coincided with the 76th Constitution Day. The NJAC, which briefly gave the government an equal role along with the judiciary in the appointment of judges to the constitutional courts, was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2015 as unconstitutional.
The plea urged the 2015 judgment to be rendered void ab initio as it revived the collegium system which was a “synonym for nepotism and favouritism.” “Since the Collegium came into existence, appointments to higher judiciary have been a ‘riddle wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma’ to borrow an expression from Winston Churchill. There has been no transparency whatsoever, at all.
“Even within the judiciary there has been lamentation. The Parliament which represents the will of the people, in exercise of its constituent power, had enacted 99th Constitutional Amendment Act and the NJAC Act. However, the enactments were “quashed and set aside” by this court, reducing the Parliament to an inferior tribunal,” the plea said.
(Manas Dasgupta)