Cong urges judiciary to fight back govt onslaught

The Congress on Friday exhorted the Supreme Court collegium to speak firmly against the government's onslaught on the judiciary.

Its spokesman and senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi made four demands on the Collegium, including forthwith reiteration of its recommendation to elevate Uttarakhand High Court Chief Justice K M Joseph to the Supreme Court.

He said the Collegium should forthwith seek reasons from the government for four months of delay in returning its recommendation and ask under what powers it segregated the recommendations made for appointment of the two Supreme Court judges.

Singhvi said the Collegium should firmly tell the government as a matter of principle that no further appointments of judges will be recommended by it unless they are cleared fast.

He said the government's obnoxious attempt is to fill the posts with men of its own choice and delay the appointments until it finds such persons as it happened not only in case of Justice Joseph, but also in case of not appointing the Lok Pal and the information commissioners under the Right to Information Act.

Blasting Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad for the alibis he advanced in not elevating Justice Joseph, Singhvi said the government is "playing games to weaken the judiciary" and it is high time that the judiciary as one organ of the State speaks firmly to another organ for crossing the limits.

He coined a new phrase of "content-based assault" for the government's tactic of acting against Justice Joseph since he quashed the President's rule that it had imposed on Uttarakhand to oust the Congress government.

The law minister's alibi in rejecting Justice Joseph's elevation since Kerala from where he comes already has a Supreme Court judge and two High Court chief justices stands nowhere since there are states like Maharashtra and Delhi which already have three judges in the Apex Court, Singhvi said.