Date:10/07/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/07/10/stories/2009071060521400.htm

National

“Judicial reforms after national consensus”

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The government will seek a national consensus on bringing about judicial reforms, Union Law and Justice Minister M. Veerappa Moily said on Thursday. It would take a couple of months to set the ball rolling.

The reforms were long awaited and whatever the methodology to go about the exercise, the process should be expedited.

The procedure for transfer of judges was the first step towards reform, he said in reply to a question on appointment of judges in the Lok Sabha.

It’s no charity

Social engineering was not a charity, but a right to the oppressed. All demands for appointment of women, and persons belonging to the Schedule Castes and Tribes and Other Backward Classes as judges would be fulfilled when a holistic view was taken on judicial reforms.

No confrontation

However, there was no need to confront the judiciary on the issue, the Minister said answering supplementaries.

Dowry deaths

To another supplementary whether the government would recommend the capital punishment for dowry deaths, Mr. Moily pointed out that the Law Commission, to which the matter was referred, said there was no need for such a proposal.

Even otherwise, there were provisions in the law to hand out the death sentence in the “rarest of rare” cases, he said.