‘Judge picks not linked to equation with govt’
NEW DELHI: Former Chief Justice of India (CJI) Uday Umesh Lalit on Sunday said a delay by the Union government in clearing names sent by the Supreme Court collegium has nothing to do with its equation with the government and that the process is purely based on the names that are recommended.
Taking a question during an interview with HT on why there is a delay of over a month in processing the collegium’s September 26 and September 28 recommendations to appoint a Supreme Court judge and three chief justices of high courts (two being cases of transfer), justice Lalit said this has nothing to do with CJI specifically, as it is the collegium, a body of five judges, which approved the names.
Speaking on the issue of delay in clearing collegium recommendations, the former CJI said: “It does not depend on the equation with the government. It depends on who are the persons whose names are recommended.”
He added: “The appointments are made by the collegium and not by the Chief Justice of India. The CJI is only an initiator. He initiates a particular name. If it is supported by the entire body of collegium, the name is recommended.”
During the tenure of his predecessor, former CJI NV Ram
ana, some recommendations sent for appointment to the Supreme Court were cleared within 48 hours. The names of justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and JB Pardiwala were recommended by the collegium on May 5 and were notified by the President on May 7.
On August 17, 2021, the Supreme Court collegium headed by then CJI Ramana recommended a record nine names for clearance as Supreme Court judges.
All nine were appointed by the President by an order on August 26. Then CJI NV Ramana and Union law minister Kiren Rijiju were said to have a good working relationship, with justice Ramana referring to him in many public functions as his “friend”.
Rijiju recently took potshots at the collegium, calling it “opaque” and “not accountable”. Justice Lalit sought to dismiss the law minister’s comments as personal views. He said: “In a democracy, everybody is entitled to his viewpoint. The law minister is also entitled to his viewpoint. It is his individual view and not an attack on the collegium.”
During justice Lalit’s tenure, two members of the collegium — present CJI Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud and justice S Abdul Nazeer — objected to the procedure adopted by him to communicate views through written opinions in a departure from the usual tradition of holding physical meeting to have consultations.
The communications sent by justice Lalit were reported in the media, revealing the names being considered. Taking exception to such disclosures, he said: “We must realise these are all confidential matters. These are not letters which were written for anybody else except those four members who were forming the collegium. They are not for the eyes of the general public. If they have been leaked out, it is a breach of secrecy.”
The former CJI also spoke on the social media outrage following the November 7 verdict acquitting three people charged with the brutal gang rape and murder of a 19-year-old girl from Delhi’s Chhawla. After the verdict, experts said that if evidence was deficient, the court could have commuted the death sentence, and not freed the convicts.
“We do have emotions, but as a judicially trained mind, we know how to channelise the emotions,” said justice Lalit. He added: “One has to see the law as it stands, apply it to the facts before the court without being guided by emotions. If that is the logic and that is what has to be taken, then to say that the judges are devoid of any emotion may not be correct.”
The incident took place in 2012 and the Delhi high court in August 2018 upheld the death sentence awarded to the convicts by a trial court.
The former CJI said that though his tenure as CJI for 74 days was short, it did not hamper his plan to introduce reforms.