The Government today made the most audacious move ever on the issue of judicial accountability. Contrary to the advice of the Constitution Review Commission (CRC), the Government proposes to sit in judgment on complaints of ‘‘deviant behaviour’’ against judges of the high courts and Supreme Court.A Constitutional amendment Bill cleared by the Cabinet this evening provides that the Law Minister and an eminent person chosen by the Prime Minister shall be very much part of the machinery for disciplining judges.All set to be tabled by Law Minister Arun Jaitley before the current Parliamentary session ends on Friday, the Bill seeks to create a National Judicial Commission not only to appoint judges but also to take action against errant judges.This is a major departure from the arrangement envisaged by the CRC, which said that the National Judicial Commission consisting of representatives from the executive and the judiciary shall be limited to selecting judges for appointment. As for complaints of deviant behaviour, the CRC proposed a separate committee comprising only the the Chief Justice of India and two senior-most judges of the Supreme Court.The CRC headed by former Chief Justice of India M N Venkatachaliah said that it had ‘‘consciously excluded’’ any role for the executive in the disciplinary mechanism.‘‘There may be room for executive say in the matter of appointment but it is totally impermissible in the matter of removal or in disciplinary matters. Once appointed, the judge is supposed to be totally independent which includes independence from executive influence,’’ the CRC said, with a great deal of emphasis.But the Bill, set to be introduced in the wake of a series of judicial scandals involving high court judges, makes it clear that the executive will have a say in determining whether the judge in question is guilty and if so the quantum of penalty to be imposed on him. The National Judicial Commission will be empowered to transfer a judge or withdraw all judicial work from him or recommend to the Government to initiate impeachment proceedings him in Parliament.In his statement yesterday in the Lok Sabha, Jaitley prepared the ground for executive intervention by pointing out that the in-house mechanism of judicial accountability has so far failed to detect or punish corrupt judges. This is borne out by the fact that barely two months ago the judiciary recommended the confirmation of Shameet Mukherjee as a judge of the Delhi high court and the President would have acted on that but for the evidence unearthed against him around the same by the CBI.Another significant departure made by the Bill from the CRC’s report relates to the eminent person who will be part of the National Judicial Commission. The CRC said that he should be nominated by the President in consultation with the Chief Justice of India. But Jaitley changed that to nomination made on the advice of the Prime Minister. Even so, the judicial members will outnumber others in the National Judicial Commission. In the case of complaints against Supreme Court judges, the judicial members will be the Chief Justice of India and two senior-most judges of the Supreme Court while the non-judicial members will be the Union law minister and the eminent person chosen by the Prime Minister.In the case of complaints against high court judges, the National Judicial Commission will also include the chief justice of the high court concerned and the chief minister of the state concerned.
