Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Supreme Court’s scathing observation on appointment of judges, saying it was a reality check for the PM. “Reality check from Supreme Court for the PM: No Govt of Modi, by Modi, for Modi,” he said in a tweet.
The reaction from Gandhi scion has come a day after, the Supreme Court sent out a stern message to the Centre over non-execution of collegium’s decision to transfer and appoint Chief Justices and judges in High Courts, saying it will not tolerate the “logjam” and would intervene to make it accountable.
At the Congress briefing, party spokesman Kapil Sibal said the issue of national security being trotted out by the government while deciding judicial appointments could be just an excuse to block a name.
“I think this is just an excuse to block a name which they do not like. This is what I feel but I don’t know what the reality isIJ”, Sibal, a former law minister, said. He said that whenever during the UPA time there was any issue about a particular name, it would send that information to the Collegium saying that these are “our reservations. This is the data that we have”.
“If the Collegium repeated its recommendation after considering the data, we would not stand in the way,” he said. At the same time, he made it clear that this Government will take its own position. “We can’t tell this Government what to do and not to do.”
Observing that justice delivery system is “collapsing”, a bench headed by Chief Justice T S Thakur, who also heads the five-membered apex court collegium, had said, “We won’t tolerate logjam in judges’ appointment which is stifling its judicial work. We will fasten accountability.”