‘Disregard of people’s mandate’: Dhankhar on NJAC Act’s repeal
NEW DELHI: Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar commented on the system of selecting judges for constitutional courts, in the course of his opening address after assuming the office of Rajya Sabha Chairperson on Wednesday, indicating the hardening of battle lines between the executive and the judiciary on the issue.
Dhankhar said the Supreme Court’s 2015 judgment striking down the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Act was a “glaring instance” of “severe compromise” of Parliamentary sovereignty and disregard of the “mandate of the people”.
He offered NJAC as an example of how the ability of the executive, judiciary and legislature, need to work within their domains is critical to democracy.
“Democracy blossoms and flourishes when its three facets the Legislature, the Judiciary and the Executive scrupulously adhere to their respective domains,” he said and went on to add, “... Any incursion by one, howsoever subtle, in the domain of other, has the potential to upset the governance apple cart.” But he then continued to dwell on the issue and said there is no “parallel” in democratic history where a “duly legitimised constitutional prescription has been judicially undone.”
Dhankhar is the latest to weigh in on the subject. Over the past few months, law minister Kiren Rijiju has targeted the Supreme Court’s collegium system, terming it “opaque” and “alien to the Constitution”. Rijiju’s comments were tacitly responded to by CJI Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud by making an appeal for “constitutional statesmanship” by the executive and judiciary as he spoke at the Constitution Day function on November 25.The court has also repeatedly and publicly criticised delays by the government in going ahead with its recommendations for appointment of judges.
On Wednesday, in a status report in the Supreme Court, the government pointed out that the process of appointing ad hoc judges in high courts, as per Supreme Court’s April 2021 judgment, will require inclusions in the Memorandum of Procedure (MOP) -- the document that guides the appointment of judges to the constitutional courts. This is not the first time Dhankhar has taken on the collegium system, and the Supreme Court’s scrapping of NJAC. While speaking at an event last week he said,“our judiciary being one of the critical institutions of governance cannot be the executive or legislature. The doctrine of separation of power is fundamental to our governance.” On Wednesday, Dhankhar referred to the process followed to pass NJAC bill and said:“rarely in Parliamentary democracy, there has been such massive support to a Constitutional legislation,”