SC Collegium to Centre: Don't judge our nominees by your IB report

New Delhi, Sept 8: The war over the appointments to the higher judiciary in India doesn't seem to end. The Supreme Court collegium has told the government that it did not approve of the Intelligence Bureau report and is not bound by the opinion in such reports.

The communication by the collegium to the government comes after the IB had sent a report to the Law Ministry in which questions were raised over the reputation of a district judge whose name was proposed for elevation.

While citing the memorandum of procedure, the law ministry had objected to his appointment. The collegium, however, has communicated to the government that its own inquiry had found nothing adverse.

The collegium stated that it did not approve of the Intelligence Bureau report and is not bound by the opinion in such reports.

The collegium also said that the Memorandum of Procedure for the appointment of judges to the High Court and Supreme Court is still not finalised. Several recommendations made by the government are yet to be approved by the collegium and hence during the pendency of the same it would not be right to raise any clause that is contentious to resist appointments.

Unspoken war

There has been an unspoken war between the Centre and the judiciary over the appointment of judges. To add fuel to the fire, Justice Chelameswar who said that he would attend any meetings of the collegium due to non-transparency, had also said that the minutes of the meeting need to be prepared.

After the Supreme Court had struck down the NJAC Act, it had suggested that a Memorandum of Procedure be prepared to ensure transparency in the appointment of judges to the higher judiciary.

However, there have been several issues that have not been agreed upon. This had led to an outburst by Chief Justice of India, T S Thakur who had said that they would legally direct the government to speed up the appointments.

OneIndia News