The Narendra Modi government told the Supreme Court that two-decade old collegium system is ‘dead and buried forever’ and hence it cannot be revived even if the five-judge Constitution Bench of the top court quashes the new National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC).
Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi also urged the bench led by Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar to refer the matter to a nine or 11-judge bench for reconsideration of 1993 judgment which took away from the government the power of appointing judges and vested it with an apex court collegium headed by the Chief Justice of India.
Rohatgi further contended that the Parliament will have to frame another legislation to deal with the appointment of judges in case the constitutional amendment and the NJAC are held to be bad in law.
“Parliament has replaced the collegium with NJAC and what is dead can’t be revived by the judiciary. You cannot go back to the old system. There is no question of automatic revival of the old system. Striking down the act and the amendment would only result in a hiatus, requiring Parliament to re-legislate to fill the vacuum,” the Attorney General argued yesterday.
Senior Advocate Fali Nariman, appearing for the Supreme Court Advocate on Record Association (SCAORA), which is contradicting the NJAC, told the constitution seat of Justice JS Khehar, Justice J Chelameswar, Justice Madan B Lokur, Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel that regardless of the fact that after the reexamination, the seat of nine judges or eleven judges emphasizes the position taken by nine judges in 1993, it was not going to have any material effect.
Dismissing the discord that the Central government was looking for the reevaluation of 1993 decision – as known as second judges case that gave legal power in legal arrangements – to defer the hearing on the test to the NJAC, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi told the court that it could simply rethink its prior verdicts under “convincing circumstances” or to overrule any “flawed choice”.
Tending to the controversy by SCAORA that in the occasion of court striking down the NJAC, the collegium framework would be resuscitated, Rohatgi said regardless of the possibility that the court strikes down the NJAC it would not mean revival of the collegium framework which stands covered with the change of the constitution.
Indeed, even as the contentions will proceed on Tuesday, the court requested that the Attorney General consider the destiny of extra judges of the High Courts whose residency would be reaching an end amid the courts of the becoming aware of the group of petitions testing the NJAC.
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