Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur on Friday said the Union government did not keep its promise that filling up judicial vacancies is its “topmost priority”, and accused the government of trying to starve the cause of justice by not appointing judges and locking courtrooms en masse.
In an open court hearing on Friday, a three-judge Bench led by Chief Justice Thakur accused the government of trying to “decimate the judiciary and lock justice out”.”In Karnataka HC, an entire floor of courts are locked because there are no judges. Once we had a situation where we had judges but no court rooms. But now there are courtrooms but no judges,” Chief Justice Thakur told Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi.
“You may now as well close court rooms down and lock justice out,” the Chief Justice said, before relapsing into a few moments of silence as he looked on at the assembled courtroom.
“There is a lot of passion on both sides in this matter”, he said, adding that no action was taken for the past nine months since a Constitution Bench scrapped the NJAC law and asked the government to frame a new Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) for Judicial Appointments.
“Nothing is happening. For nine months, the names the Collegium gave you have been languishing with you… you have been sitting over the names. What are you waiting for? Some change in the system? Some revolution in the system?” the Chief Justice said.
He said how in the Allahabad High Court, the Collegium had recommended 18 judges for appointment and the government chose eight out of them and now wants only two of the eight.
Initially, the Bench ordered the secretaries concerned with judicial appointments in the Justice Department and the Prime Minister’s Office to appear in the court in person with records. But the Bench later retracted this order.
“We don’t want a situation where institutions will clash. This is not about anybody’s ego. This is not personal. This is about institutions suffering,” the Chief Justice Thakur said.
