Law Minister Questions Collegium System Again, Backs Ex-Judge Who Said SC 'Hijacked' Constitution

Amid the ongoing friction between the judiciary and the executive over the process for judges appointments, Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju endorsed the view of a former High Court judge who commented that the Supreme Court 'hijacked' the Constitution by formulating the collegium system to select judges.

Rijiju shared in Twitter a video clip of the interview of former Delhi High Court judge RS Sodhi who expressed the view that Supreme Court 'hijacked' the Constitution by saying that it will have the power to appoint judges.

"After 'hijacking', they (the apex court) said that we will appoint (judges) ourselves and the government will have no role in it," Sodhi said.

Sharing the clip in Twitter, Rijiju said that "majority of the people have similar sane views".

"Voice of a Judge...

Real beauty of Indian Democracy is- it's success. People rule themselves through their representatives.

Elected representatives represent the interests of the People & make laws. Our Judiciary is independent and our Constitution is Supreme.

Actually majority of the people have similar sane views. It's only those people who disregard the provisions of the Constitution and mandate of the people think that they are above the Constitution of India.

All the three organs of our State i.e Legislature, Executive and Judiciary must work together in the larger interest of the nation"

The Minister's comments have come in the backdrop of the Supreme Court collegium making an unprecedented move last week by publicising the Centre's objections to certain candidates and its reasons to reject those objections. The Collegium also question the Centre for returning names with the same objections which were earlier rejected.

Later, in a public event held on Saturday, CJI Chandrachud supported the basic structure doctrine, which was earlier questioned by the Vice President. The CJI termed basic structure doctrine as the "north star" guiding the interpretation of the Constitution.

The Law Minister has questioned the collegium system on past many occasions, by saying that it was "alien to the Constitution" and the will of the people expressed through Parliament was diluted. On occasion, he went to the extent of saying that if the collegium feels that the Government is sitting over files, then it should not send the files to the government. The Supreme Court, which on its judicial side is hearing a contempt petition filed against the Centre for delaying judicial appointments, expressed disapproval of the Law Minister's and Vice President's comments, and asked the Attorney General for India to advise restraint. Few days ago,  Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar publicly said that he declined the advise of Attorney General on this point, as he cannot support dilution of supremacy of the Parliament.

In another development, on Sunday evening, Prime Minister Narendra Modi lauded Chief Justice of India for announcing his plan to translate judgments to regional languages using Artificial Intelligence.

"At a recent function, the Hon’ble CJI Justice DY Chandrachud spoke of the need to work towards making SC judgments available in regional languages. He also suggested the use of technology for it. This is a laudatory thought, which will help many people, particularly youngsters", PM tweeted.

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