The Supreme Court on Monday told the Centre that before embarking on the validity of NJAC law it will decide whether the Collegium system introduced by a 1993 apex court decision required reconsideration by a larger Bench.
This vexed question had been troubling the Court ever since the Centre through Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi argued that the 1993 decision by a nine-judge Bench was wrongly decided and got completely wiped out with the introduction of the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC). However, the petitioners led by senior advocates Fali Nariman and Ram Jethmalani accused the Centre of delaying the matter by unnecessarily seeking review of 1993 decision and urged the Court to independently deal with the new law on its own merits.
Ending the confusion, the five-judge Bench led by Justice JS Khehar said that the correctness of the nine-judge Bench decision will be first settled and sought to conclude arguments on this question on Tuesday. The Court was convinced that if the new law was struck down, the Collegium cannot be revived as the original Constitution Article 124 stood amended by Parliament.
Rohatgi asked SC to heed the unanimous voice of Parliament, States and former judges of SC to end collegium. He said that the Centre will gain no victory by earning a reference to a larger Bench. NJAC, he argued, was contemplated by successive Governments and not this Government alone. But Nariman alleged “mischief” as it warned Courts after judicial appointments, the Centre may seek review of basic structure theory, settled by a 13-judge SC Bench in the famous Keshavanand Bharti case.