NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday said the collegium system of appointment of judges is the law of the land and comments against it are “not well taken.” The apex court took exceptions to the statements made by constitutional functionaries on the Supreme Court scrapping the law that paved the way for National Judicial Appointment Commission (NJAC).
The court asked Attorney General R Venkataramani to advise the ministers to exercise some control.
As the SC called the collegium system as the “law of the land”, Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju informed the Lok Sabha on Thursday that the Centre has no proposal to reintroduce the NJAC with suitable modifications.
The Minister’s response came following a question by Congress MP Mallikarjun Kharge and CPM MP John Brittas as to whether the government proposes to reintroduce National Judicial Appointments Commission with suitable modifications.
Rijiju had on November 25 said the collegium system is “alien” to the Constitution. Vice president Jagdeep Dhankhar on Wednesday said the Supreme Court’s 2015 judgment striking down the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Act was a “glaring instance” of “severe compromise” of parliamentary sovereignty and disregard of the “mandate of the people”.
A bench of Justices SK Kaul, AS Oka and Vikram Nath said that the recent statements which have been made by public functionaries are not being taken very well. Justice Kaul asked, “There were many cases pending for months and years together and some reiterated cases. In the last hearing, 19 names were sent back. How will this ping-pong battle settle?”
“The law of the land has to be followed. We have to go today not by what grievance you may have or what people may speak about the collegium system rightly or wrongly,” the bench remarked.