Lawyers’ body speaks out against NJAC
New Delhi : The right of the judiciary to insist on appointing judges is a “vital” part of its independence and basic structure of the Constitution, which has been taken away by the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC), a lawyers’ body told the Supreme Court on Thursday.
Senior advocate and jurist Fali S Nariman (in pic), appearing for the Supreme Court Advocates on Record Association, told a five-judge bench headed by Justice J S Khehar that the right to have its say in the appointments is the “core” of the independence of the judiciary.
“Right to insist is the core of the right. It is the right of appointment. It is not the only part of independence of judiciary but it is a vital part of it,” he told the bench, also comprising justices J Chelameswar, M B Lokur, Kurian Joseph and Adarsh Kumar Goel, which is hearing the petitions challenging the validity of the NJAC Act.
He was responding to the submission of Attorney General Mukul Rohtagi that judges, who will form a major block in the six-member NJAC, will have the primacy, if any, as they can always block a bad appointment.
Rohtagi had said that only the right to insist on appointments has been taken away and this does not infringe the basic structure of the Constitution.
Nariman, at the outset, referred to various write-ups that had hailed the 1993 verdict by which the collegium system of appointment of judges was conceived and operationalised.
Seeking quashing of the constitutional amendment and the law which set up the NJAC, he said that material alteration has been affected in the constitutional scheme by allowing two of the six NJAC members to veto an appointment and it amounted to substituting the constitutional scheme.
