Undo SC Ruling On Judicial Appointments: Lok Satta

Terming the Supreme Court striking down the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Act as "hasty", Lok Satta Party founder Dr Jayaprakash Narayan today demanded that an emergency session of Parliament be convened immediately so that Parliament can assert its supremacy in determining the procedure for judicial appointments.

Addressing the media, Dr JP recalled that Parliament had enacted the 99th Amendment to the Constitution providing for the NJAC to recommend appointments and transfers in the higher judiciary as the Supreme Court by judicial pronouncements had usurped the power to recommend appointments through a collegium of judges.

The Foundation for Democratic Reforms (FDR) and Lok Satta had for long argued that the appointment of judges by collegiums of judges was antithetical to democracy and accountability. At the instance of the FDR / Lok Satta, three eminent jurists of unimpeachable integrity (Justice M N Venkatachaliah and (late) Justice J S Verma, both former Chief Justices of India, and (late) Justice V R Krishna Iyer, former judge of the Supreme Court) had studied the system and recommended the constitution of a National Judicial Commission (NJC) for recommending judicial appointments, Narayan said.

The NJAC proposed by the Government was on the lines of the NJC recommended by the three jurists.

Fearing the repercussions of the quashing of the 99th Amendment, Narayan in a September 15 letter to the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and all MPs had stated that if the 99th amendment was quashed by the Supreme Court, it would be a fit case for Parliament to stand its ground and assert its supremacy in determining the procedure for judicial appointments.

Narayan said that the Supreme Court verdict had also underlined the need to cleanse politics and not to revile and reject them.

"We all love to hate politicians. But the answer to dirty politics is not divine institutions; it lies in political reform. Political parties abusing and opposing each other recklessly has led to a culture of revulsion of politics. This climate has led to today's SC verdict," he said.