Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju on Thursday said that until the procedure to ap-point judges changes, the issue of vacancies in the higher judiciary will keep crop-ping up.
“As per the Constitution, the process and procedure for appointment of judges were within the purview of the government, in consultation with the courts…,” Rijiju said in the Rajya Sabha. “Today government has very limited power to fill up judicial vacancies.”
Rijiju’s remarks in Parliament came amid a tussle between the government and the judiciary on the process of making judicial appointments in the country. The law minister himself has repeatedly criticised the existing collegium system of ap-pointments.
In 2015, the Supreme Court had struck down the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act passed by Parliament months after Narendra Modi took over as the prime minister in 2014. The court had deemed the law unconstitutional.
The National Judicial Appointments Commission proposed to make judicial ap-pointments through a body comprising of the chief justice, two senior Supreme Court judges, the law minister and two other eminent persons nominated by the chief justice, the prime minister and the leader of the Opposition.
The proposed law was to replace the collegium system, under which five senior-most judges of the Supreme Court, including the chief justice, decide on the ap-pointments and transfers of judges to the top court and the High Courts.
On December 8, the Supreme Court had told the Centre that the collegium sys-tem of appointing judges to the higher judiciary is the law of the land and must be adhered to.
On Thursday, Rijiju told the Upper House that the government approves names recommended by the collegium and added that it has no authority to look for or recommend judges.
A total of 165 judges have been appointed to the various high courts in this calendar year so far, the Minister of Law and Justice Kiren Rijiju to Rajya Sabha.
In a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha, Rijiju said that the central government has recently referred back twenty names to Supreme Court Collegium recommended for appointment as High Court judges. The Minister of Law and Justice, Shri Kiren Rijiju in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha today informed that the Government has recently referred back 20 names to Supreme Court Collegium recommended for appointment as High Court judges.
