“The timing (on the appointment of judges) are not respected by either the judiciary or the executivewhich is leading to a delay in filling vacant posts”, observed the standing parliamentary committee on law and justice in the latest report presented in Raja Sabha on Thursday.
The government and the judiciary, the committee noted, “should come up with some out-of-the-box thinking to address this perennial problem of HC vacancies,” it said.
Recent utterances by the Minister of Law Kiren Rijiju, according to which the collegial system of appointing judges is not foreseen in the Constitution, annoyed the higher judiciary by bringing it to a judging panel noting that the government has been responsible for delaying the appointments despite the reiteration of its recommendations. He also noted that the collegium system was “law of the land”.
“The committee disagrees with comments from the DoJ (Department of Justice, Department of Law) that ‘there is no indication of time to fill judge vacancies in the higher judiciary.’ The timing was tracked in the second judges’ case and also in the three MOPs concerning the appointment of judges. But sadly, those timeline are not respected by both the judiciary and the executive, which is leading to delays in filling vacancies,” the parliamentary group, led by senior BJP MP Sushil ModiShe said.
The jury expressed “deep concern” about huge vacancies in large states, where the judges-to-population ratio is already skewed. He highlighted how the three HCs of Telangana, Patna and Delhi had over 50% vacancy of judges and another 10 HCs had over 40%.
The Ministry of Law in its arguments told the parliamentary constituency that the government had conveyed the need to make improvements to the draft MoP to the Secretary General of the Supreme Court by letter dated July 11, 2017. However, no responses were received and the MoP is still to be considered to be defined.
“The committee fails to understand that even if a particular post’s vacancy date becomes known on the day a judge takes office, then why such an enormous delay in sending first recommendations from the collegium and then the their processing by the government,” the college said. noticed.
