Independence and competence in judiciary must be maintained, said former Supreme Court judge Ananga Kumar Patnaik on Saturday.
Delivering a lecture on ‘Independence of Judiciary: Collegium vs. National Judiciary Commission’ organised by the KIIT School of law here, Justice Patnaik said that at the time of framing the Constitution, the Constituent Assembly under the leadership of late Dr BR Ambedker had given importance to independence and competence in both judiciary and legislature and made relevant provisions in the Constitution.
On one hand, the Constitution has given power to legislature to make laws while on the other it has given power to judiciary to uphold its basic structure, he said. Parliament has made so many laws, but whenever the legislature has tried to dilute the
basic structure of the Constitution, the judiciary has interfered and maintained its basic structure.
In the Collegium system, five members under the chairmanship of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court select the names for the post of Supreme Court Judge and Chief Justice and Judge of High Court and recommend the name to the President.
The selection of judges by the collegium may be wrong in some cases because the judges are also human beings.
But in general, the judges know other judges’ competence by evaluating their judgments in various cases. So, it is not right to say the entire Collegium system was faulty and there was no transparency, he argued.
Now, there would be a judiciary appointment committee. In this committee, the Prime Minister, Chief Justice of Supreme Court, two judges of Supreme Court, two eminent persons and law Minister would be members.
There is also provision that if any two members of the committee object one person for judgeship, his name would be discarded.
If the law Minister can motivate one other member in his favour, together they can reject a particular candidate, Justice Patnaik observed. “We should hope for the better working of the new law,” he added.