Centre left with few options after SC verdict on NJAC

The government’s high pitch tirade against its political rivals may have fallout in terms of its inability to restore the constitutional amendment to have a commission for appointments in higher judiciary.

Updated on: Oct 18, 2015, 08:51:09 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan

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The government’s high pitch tirade against its political rivals may have fallout in terms of its inability to restore the constitutional amendment to have a commission for appointments in higher judiciary.

File photo of the Supreme Court, in New Delhi. (Mohd Zakir/ HT Photo)

This will mean the collegium system — a committee of equally empowered members — restored by Supreme Court on Friday will continue to appoint judges for a long time now.

The government has primarily two options at hand.

The first one is to seek a review of the constitutional bench judgment scrapping National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) and second to bring in a revised bill to circumvent the apex court’s decision. The first option is a usual review mechanism for judicial orders but may not result in immediate restoration of the legislative pride.

Those in the government believe that the Supreme Court may take years to review its own judgment as the SC dismissed review petition in Third Judges case after almost 15 years. That was apparently the reason for the government not deciding so far to seek a review of the five-member bench decision. The initial reaction in the law ministry was that it will be prudent on the part of political executive to seek Parliament’s power to restore its supremacy over the judiciary.

“It is not the government but the Parliament that has lost to judiciary,” was a comment of a senior government functionary.

The Constitutional Amendment Bill and the enabling NJAC bill were passed in both Houses with almost complete unanimity. The lone dissenting voice in August 2014 — when the law was debated in Rajya Sabha — was Ram Jethmalani.

More than a year later, a lot has changed in the Indian political scene. The Congress-led opposition had forced a complete washout of the monsoon session after helping the government in ensuring Parliament’s nod to reform laws — Insurance Bill and the NJAC.

Getting the revised NJAC bill through in Parliament will not be possible without Congress’ support as the NDA is in minority in Rajya Sabha.

The government’s initial strategy to turn SC order into people versus judiciary debate did not click and the government could have given a call for united political stand perceiving the SC judgment as a “direct” attack on legislature.

Calling an all party meeting on the issue could have indicated that the government was willing to take all parties on board before deciding on its next course of action.

As this did not happen, the Congress on Saturday came out firing all guns against the government and has now refused to support the revised bill for NJAC.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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