Mamata asks govt to amend JAC Bill

The law ministry is flummoxed at a strange request by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee to amend the National Judicial Appointments Commission Bill, proposing replacement of the collegium system for appointment in higher judiciary with the commission.

Updated on: Sep 30, 2014, 01:41:41 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Share via

Copy link

The law ministry is flummoxed at a strange request by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee to amend the National Judicial Appointments Commission Bill — proposing replacement of the collegium system for appointment in higher judiciary with the commission.

The West Bengal chief minister wants the bill, passed during the budget session to be ratified by state assemblies, to be amended to explicitly mention that the governor will act on the aid and advice of the council of ministers.

This was in reference to the provision in the bill regarding the consultation with the state governments while making appointments in the high courts.

The provision mentions that the commission should elicit in writing the views of the governor and the chief minister of the state concerned before recommendation regarding appointment of a judge of a high court.

As both governor and chief minister were mentioned, Banerjee expressed her concern that the governor may not act on aid and advice of the council of ministers and wanted the clarification to be mentioned in the law, government sources said.

Banerjee’s request comes in response to law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad’s letter to all chief ministers seeking their support in getting the Constitutional Amendment Bill ratified by the state government. At least half of the states have to ratify the bill for the commission to take birth.

The law ministry will not accept her suggestion.

The governor has to act on aid and advice of the council of ministers and cannot take independent stand unless specifically provided in law.

Law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad is expected to write to Banerjee explaining the Governor’s role as defined in the Constitutional to argue that the amendment sought by her was not required.

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

Check India news real-time updates, latest news on Hindustan Times and more across India.