legal luminaries on Saturday hotly contested the need for a National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) ahead of a Supreme Court Constitution Bench expected to commence hearing on the validity of the law on this subject next week.
While eminent jurist Ram Jethmalani pointed out that having the law Minister as a member in the NJAC was the biggest flaw from which the 99th Constitutional Amendment Act suffered, senior lawyers Anil Divan and TR Andhyarujina were of the view that the new arrangement providing for NJAC must be given a try given that experiments in the past have miserably failed.
Addressing a seminar on the NJAC Act 2014, Jethmalani raised a legal point by arguing that Government was the single largest litigant in court and constant interaction between judiciary and Government on NJAC panel will raise a reasonable apprehension of prejudice in the mind of any litigant approaching court. The event was organised by the Res Publican law Society, with former CJI AM Ahmadi as its Chief Patron and other prominent citizens, including The Pioneer Editor and Rajya Sabha member Chandan Mitra as one of its Patron.
Speaking next, Divan said, “People are dissatisfied with how appointments are being made by the collegium.” While arguing that the system needs a change, he pointed out several flaws in the legislation. Incidentally, Jethmalani said that the NJAC Act drafted by the NDA Government was perfect as his objection was only about the Constitutional Amendment Act. He criticised the UPA’s NJAC Bill being flawed on the premise that composition of NJAC was to be decided by a parliamentary law which was open to alteration and amendment by the executive.
Andhyarujina spoke after the two lawyers cited practices adopted by UK and South Africa among other countries where a Commission system of appointing judges worked successfully. He said that the country had witnessed the ills of executive appointing judiciary and judiciary appointing judiciary and none have been satisfactory. He was of the firm belief that the NJAC experiment should be given a try to see if a balance can be achieved where neither the executive nor the judiciary can complain.
Jethmalani made yet another argument that unless national character of political leaders is enhanced, no system will produce positive results. “Corrupt politicians always want a corrupt judiciary,” he said, adding, “National character cannot be built by legislation.” Instead of having eminent persons from SC/ST/OBC/women, he preferred having a jurist who is a leader of bar and an eminent citizen who can be the voice of the underprivileged and needy.