MPs want judiciary to be made accountable

Members in the Lok Sabha across the political spectrum on Friday pitched for judicial accountability with a Congress member arguing that people have every right to see that the judiciary is accountable to them and a Trinamool Congress (TMC) member saying that the collegium system for the appointment of judges by judges has “failed”.

The MPs, even from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), voiced their concern using the opportunity of a discussion on the High Court and the Supreme Court Judges (Salaries and Conditions of Service) Amendment Bill aimed at removing anomalies in pensionary benefits of high court judges elevated from the bar.

Their contentions came against the backdrop of the Apex Court invalidating the 99th Constitutional Amendment and the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Act unanimously passed by both Houses of Parliament in October.

Initiating the debate on the Bill, SP Muddahanumegowda (Congress) urged the government to bring a judicial accountability Bill. He said “people have every right to see that judges are accountable to them,” and added that parliamentarians are always asked to be accountable to the people.

Citing a huge backlog of cases in courts, he said over 371 posts of High Court judges out of 1,071 sanctioned posts across the country were vacant.

Kalyan Banerjee (TMC) was vigorous in his criticism of the collegium system through which the judiciary appoints judges to the high courts and the Supreme Court.

“Collegium system has failed,” he said, adding that whoever the judges in the collegium “like are called good-good and the others are bad-bad”.

He cited the case of former Gujarat High Court Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya who was not appointed a Supreme Court judge and said good lawyers did not want to join as High Court judges due to the collegium system.

Banerjee also opposed some provisions in the High Court and the Supreme Court Judges (Salaries and Conditions of Service) Amendment Bill. The TMC member criticised the proposal in the Bill to include 10 years of practice as qualifying service for the lawyers to be elevated as high court judges so that they could qualify for pension.