NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday binned a plea that sought a two-year cooling-off period for the judges of the apex court and high courts before accepting political appointment. It is up to a judge to take a call on accepting such an appointment, a bench of Justices SK Kaul and Sudhanshu Dhulia said.
“It is for the judge to accept or refuse. Do you also want them to not be appointed to tribunals? The issue of whether a retired judge should accept any office has to be left to the better sense of the judge concerned, or a law has to be enacted, which cannot be a subject matter of this court’s directions,” the bench said.
The court was considering a plea filed by the Bombay Lawyers Association, a lawyer’s body that also urged the top court to request retiring judges not to accept any appointment voluntarily for a two-year period.
The lawyers’ body, appearing through Advocate Ahmad Abdi, said that the matter pertaining to judges accepting post-retirement appointments needed to be regulated as it created a misconception in people’s minds. “After deciding these sensitive cases, if you accept an appointment from the government, what impression is created on the public? That is my question. This is pricking our conscience because we face it day in and day out. Everyone is questioning it,” Abdi said.
Also in top court
UP slap gate: Notice issued to police over plea
The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued notice on Tushar Gandhi’s plea, which sought an independent time-bound probe and registration of FIR in the incident of an Uttar Pradesh teacher asking students to slap their Muslim classmate.
Terming the issue as “serious”, a bench of Justices AS Oka and Pankaj Mithal directed the Muzaffarnagar SP to file an action taken report, along with steps taken to protect the victim and his family by September 25. The plea alleged the family has been under mounting pressure to strike a “compromise.”