The Centre on Tuesday said the Government is working with the judiciary to iron out differences over the revised Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) which guides appointment of judges and has sent a fresh letter to the Chief Justice of India in this regard.
law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said in the Rajya Sabha that the letter was written on August 3 but did not shared the details in the House maintaining the sanctity of the ongoing discussion with judiciary.
“The fresh letter was sent after the Supreme Court collegium did not accept some suggestions for the MoP while agreeing to some others. The Government, after careful consideration of the matter, has sent its response to the Chief Justice of India vide letter dated August 3, 2016,” Prasad said in a statement to the members on a Calling Attention Motion of Congress member Vivek Tankha regarding ‘The situation arising out of the impasse in the appointment of judges in High Courts and the Supreme Court’.
The whole process as per MoP takes six months as states/ intelligence bureau and Supreme Court collegium are consulted and then the case is processed for approval, Prasad said.
Earlier, Tankha said there has been a complete bottleneck in appointment of judges in last one and a half years. Noting that there are huge vacancies in courts, he said unless these vacancies are filled, it would be difficult to take up the pending cases. Tankha said the systems of fast track courts, ad-hoc judges and Gram Nyayalya (rural courts) are not functioning.
Participating in the debate, Satish Chandra Misra (BSP) said there has been a stalemate in appointment of judges and sought to know the total number of vacancies that have been created during this period. He said there is no judge from Scheduled Castes in the Allahabad High Court and asked “How many judges are from Scheduled Castes in Supreme Court and High CourtsIJ”
Naresh Agrawal (SP), K Keshava Rao (TRS) and D Raja (CPI) and Rajiv Shukla (Congress) were among the other Speakers.