9 judges hold in-chamber review hearing
NEWDELHI: A nine-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi held an in-chamber hearing on Thursday on a review petition seeking the recall of a historic 1993 ruling establishing the primacy of the CJI over the executive in appointing judges to the higher judiciary.
The petition filed by the National Lawyers Campaign for Judicial Reforms and Transparency (NLCJRT), an organisation that claims to work for reform in the judiciary, asked the top court to restore the pre-1993 position under which the final authority on appointments/transfers of judges of the Supreme Court and high courts vested with the Centre.
The other members of the bench are justices SA Bobde, NV Ramana, Arun Mishra, Rohinton Nariman, R Banumathi, UU Lalit, AMKhanwilkar and Ashok Bhushan. The review plea sought an open court hearing of the matthe ter, an issue that was discussed on Thursday by the judges.
An official order relating to the plea for an open court hearing of the review petition or on the merits of the plea had not been placed on the SC website until late in the evening.
Review petitions are heard in closed chambers and lawyers are not allowed to appear during such a hearing. In case the present nine-judge bench agrees to conduct an open court hearing, it would mean that he court is open to reviewing the appointment system.
Articles 124 and 217 of the Constitution empower the President, in “consultation” with the CJI, to appoint/transfer judges of the Supreme Court and high courts. The1993 verdict held that the expression “consultation” means the “concurrence” of the CJI.
In October 2015, a five-judge Constitution bench struck down as “unconstitutional” Parliament’s decision to set up the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) to replace present collegium system.
NJAC, besides including the CJI and two senior-most judges among its members, would also have comprised the Union law minister as the Central government representative. A former Supreme Court judge recently brought up the issue of NJAC and judicial appointment, alleging the government was trampling on judicial independence. In an op-ed published on Wednesday in The Indian Express, Justice Madan Lokur said the NJAC was struck down as unconstitutional but is effectively still in place “because of the Centre’s behaviour”. Lokur cited cases in which the government rejected appointments made by the Supreme Court collegium.