Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar rekindled the debate on judicial accountability on Friday, referring to the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC), which was disposed of by the Supreme Court in 2015. However, if the NJAC, which has been permitted by the Parliament with very much near unanimity, could have been allowed to function, many issues related to judicial accountability could have been dealt with by it, said Dhankhar.
It came up after Congress leader Jairam Ramesh referred to the recent controversy of large sums of cash found at the residence of a Delhi High Court judge. “This Parliament holds record consensual support for that historic legislation, which we endorse, and that aimed to very severely deal with this malaise, without directly naming the NJAC,” Dhankhar asserted. “Well, if that mechanism had actually been there, maybe we would not be having this type of incident.”
He then reminded the House about the wide public support that the NJAC Bill received in 2014, with the bill passing the Rajya Sabha with only one abstention and with the support of 16 of the state assemblies, eventually securing the assent of the President under Article 111 of the Constitution. Dhankhar raised concerns that money from the cash from the judge’s residence incident did not become known immediately and pointed to a lack of systemic transparency and accountability.
“This is the way in which politicians and bureaucrats and industrialists are treated in such cases, they are dealt with quickly and publicly,” he added. Dhankhar urged that such matters have a transparent and effective systemic response.
But when the NJAC was struck down by the Supreme Court, admonishing that judicial independence was possibly compromised by ‘indebtedness’ to the government, the apex court had found fault with it. The petition submitted by 55 MPs seeking to impeach Allahabad High Court judge Shekhar Kumar Yadav on the charge of having made hate speech was also mentioned by Dhankhar. In the petition, one MP whose signature appeared twice has since denied signing it.
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