NEW DELHI: The controversy over Justice Cyriac Joseph’s alleged below-par performance dominated proceedings in the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) case in the Supreme Court on Friday.
The Centre informed the apex court that the issue of Justice Cyriac Joseph “not giving out judgments at par with others on the Bench was correct”.
The Bench had on Thursday asked Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi to verify the information received by the SC registry from different High Courts about Justice Joseph, who retired as an SC judge on January 27, 2012.
“The information provided by the registrars of different High Courts to the apex court registry on the judgments delivered by the judge cannot be relied upon,” Rohatgi submitted before a five-judge Constitution Bench.
Rohatgi said Justice Joseph had signed 309 judgments as a Supreme Court judge. He had authored seven of them, while two were concurrent verdicts during his tenure of three years, six months and 20 days.
On this, the Bench intervened to point out that Justice Joseph did not have a long tenure in the apex court and he had headed the Bench only for a short duration.
However, Rohatgi further elaborated that Justice Joseph was the Chief Justice of the Uttarakhand High Court from March 20, 2005, to July 6, 2008, and had delivered 162 judgments, out of which “85 judgments and orders” were completed in four to five paragraphs.
“Really speaking, only two out of those 85 can be called judgments and even those were authored by other judges,” the AG said.
Rohatgi also placed before the Bench the copies of the 85 judgments, which were “in 91 pages”.
Sharing his personal experience with the Bench, Rohatgi said, “While I was practising in the Delhi High Court, Justice Joseph was a judge and (I) had argued before him. He did not deliver the judgments in over 100 matters in which verdicts were reserved by him.”
The AG referred to a news report stating that Justice Joseph has written a detailed letter to the members of five-judge Bench hearing the NJAC matter complaining about him. The judges denied receiving any such letter though.
“We have not received any such letter,” Justice Khehar said.
Later, senior advocate Fali S Nariman, who argued against the NJAC on behalf of Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association, wrapped up his rejoinder arguments.
Anil Divan, appearing for the Bar Association of India (BAI), told the Bench that an impression has been given that various “bars are supporting the NJAC” and this is not correct.
Divan said that now the situation in the courts has changed as the government has become the major litigants.
“If you are the largest litigant, then can you be allowed to have a say in the selection of judges,” he said.
The counsel for BAI opposed the Centre’s plea that nowhere in the world, the collegium system of judges appointing judges was working. “Why are you (Divan) thinking that they (Government) will keep something and give something,” the Bench asked.