Statute panel to take up foreign origin issue

By J. Venkatesan

NEW DELHI, SEPT. 26. The National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution has decided to take up the issue of whether citizens of foreign origin could occupy high posts such as Prime Minister or President.

Since its inception the Commission has been evading this issue, notwithstanding the fact that one of the members, Mr. P.A. Sangma, MP and leader of National Congress Party, had submitted two study papers for discussion.

Releasing a set of seven consultation papers, the chairman of the Commission, Mr. Justice M.N. Venkatachalaiah, told presspersons today that the panel proposed to discuss the papers given by Mr. Sangma and come out with a definite proposal.

Asked whether any paper on that subject would be released for eliciting people's response, he said due to shortage of time, it might not be possible. Five or six more papers (which it had planned to release earlier), would not be released but the outcome of the discussions on the core issues framed would form part of the recommendations.

Asked whether the Commission would be able to complete its task before October 31 or its term would be extended by another six months, he said the panel's endeavour was to finalise the report before the deadline and therefore no decision had been taken regarding extension.

Mr. Justice Venkatachalaiah said the panel had received over 20,000 responses to the 14 consultation papers already released. Asked about cooperation from political parties, he said initially the response was not good but now many parties had responded. Two former Prime Ministers, Mr. P.V. Narasimha Rao and Mr. I.K. Gujral, had also appeared before the Commission and shared their views, he said.

He said in the paper on `social security and employment', it had been suggested that `rural wage labour' as a means of livelihood for a minimum of 80 days in a year be declared as a fundamental right by introduction of a new Article, viz 21-B in the Constitution.

The Commission did not accept the view of the Planning Commission that generation of rural employment had reached a level of saturation. On the contrary, he said, additional jobs would have to come essentially from agricultural and rural sectors by increasing agricultural activities through crop diversification, horticulture and other measures.

Mr. Justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy said the panel, in its paper on superior courts, had suggested setting up of a National Judicial Academy (NJA) to streamline the procedure in the appointment of High Court and Supreme Court Judges.

He said that since independence of judiciary had been declared as the basic feature of the Constitution, the composition of the NJA should be the Chief Justice of India, four senior-most judges of the Supreme Court and Union Law Minister or in the alternative, the CJI, four senior-most Judges of the apex court, the Law Minister and two other eminent persons to be nominated by the President in consultation with the Prime Minister and the CJI.

Regarding removal of sitting judges, the paper has suggested entrusting the complaint to all the sitting judges of the Supreme Court, who after a proper enquiry would make appropriate recommendations to the President. Another suggestion was to retain the existing the procedure of impeachment.

Mr. Justice Reddy said that the paper had recommended that the retirement age of judges, whether High Court or Supreme Court should be uniformly fixed at 65 or whatever age that might be prescribed.

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