A Supreme Court advocate has petitioned the top court to create a National Judicial Service Commission to make the appointments of judges more transparent, a thorny issue that recently pitted the judiciary against the Centre.
Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay wants the proposed commission to select high court and apex court judges much as the Union Public Service Commission appoints candidates to certain government jobs through an exam and an interview.
Alternatively, he has suggested that the recommendations for appointing advocates as high court judges should come from full court meetings (where all the judges are present) of the high courts themselves.
The Chief Justice of India should then approve or reject them in full court meetings of the Supreme Court, he has added.
"It will minimise the scope of nepotism and instil confidence among lawyers and the public at large," the plea says.
Currently, a Supreme Court collegium of the Chief Justice and the two other senior-most judges decide the appointments of high court judges following an initial recommendation from a panel of senior judges of the high court concerned.
Upadhyay's plea comes a year after the Supreme Court quashed a law that gave the Centre a say in judges' appointments. The government had claimed the law brought "transparency" to a process that is now the sole preserve of the judges' collegium.
"This is also a bitter truth that appointment of judges by the prevailing collegium system has a scope of favouritism ---- that is why an independent National Judicial Service Commission on the lines of (the) Union Public Service Commission is the need of the hour" said Mr. Upadhyay.
[Via: Telegraph]
No comments:
Post a Comment