NEW DELHI: Law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Thursday said it was “a collective decision” to send senior advocate Harish Salve and not attorney-general Mukul Rohtagi to argue India’s case on the Kulbhushan Jadhav case in International Court of Justice at the Hague.
“Finance minister Arun Jaitely, minister for external affairs Sushma Swaraj and the Law Ministry had a say in the decision to send Harish Salve and he did an excellent job,” Prasad said.
He added that Rohatgi’s request to be relieved from his post has been received and action on it would be taken accordingly. He chose to be mum on who would be the next top legal officer of the country.
On the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) case, Prasad said, “There is no move to revive the NJAC legislation. It would need bipartisan support if it is revived.”
Speaking on corruption cases involving the judiciary, Prasad said, “The government will not be an adjudicator in cases of alleged corruption in the judiciary. The judiciary should itself put in place a robust mechanism to deal with complaints against judges.”
He refused to talk about the differences between the judiciary and the government over the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) on appointement of judges and remarked that the MoP is a work in progress.
Asked about Justice C S Karnan who has been in hiding since May 9 when he was sentenced to six months in jail by the SC in a contempt case, Prasad said the Karnan episode highlighted the need for proper judicial scrutiny before appointing a person as a judge of a constitutional court.