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'Involve executive in judges' appointments'

By Our Special Correspondent

Bangalore Aug. 23. The refrain at the seminar on "National Judicial Commission" here today was that the executive should be involved in the appointment of members of the higher judiciary.

Making a case, K.K. Venugopal, senior advocate in the Supreme Court, said the ideal mix would be the judiciary and the executive, the latter to a minimal extent. The changeover from the earlier practice (in which the President consulted the Chief Justice of India while making appointments) to a system where the Chief Justice, with the assistance of senior judges forming a "collegium'', initiated and finalised appointments, had caused concern, he said.

Mr. Venugopal said that it was necessary to give representation to religious and ethnic communities. In India, it was imperative to give the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes representation in the higher judiciary, he added.

He said that there were a large number of vacancies in the High Courts, and all the pleadings of the Chief Justices had fallen on deaf ears. The Constitution Amendment Bill, which among other things provided for the setting up of the National Judicial Commission, to ensure that the judicial credibility was not affected, should be approved immediately.

On the issue of disciplining deviant judges, Mr. Venugopal said a political approach would not help, and there had to be a commission comprising the Chief Justice of India and senior judges.

This would ensure that the independence of the judiciary was maintained, he added.

Mr. Venugopal said that there should a clause in the Amendment Bill for punishing a person who made out a frivolous case against a judge. The National Judicial Commission, he suggested, should have a full-fledged secretariat, which would monitor the judgments delivered by each of the judges to rate their performance.

The Advocate General, A.N. Jayaram, said India was the only country where appointment of judges was made by the judiciary alone. In the U.S., a Senate Committee interviewed a candidate thoroughly before he was named a judge. In South Africa, personal and professional details of a candidate was put up on a website and a public debate allowed, indicating the level of transparency. In India, we put persons in high positions without testing their credentials in a transparent manner, he added.

Mr. Jayaram suggested that the Commission be empowered to punish deviant judges. If that was not done, it would become a "toothless phenomenon'', he remarked. Impeachment of judges had now ceased to be an instrument for disciplining judges, he said.

The Chairman of the Karnataka State Bar Council (KSBC), Udeda Basavaraj, said there should a mechanism wherein the judiciary had the powers to check errant judges.

The seminar was organised by the KSBC.

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