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KIREN RIJIJU who, as Union Law Minister, became the vocal face of what was seen as the Government’s protracted pushback against the higher judiciary, was moved out of the Law Ministry Thursday and replaced by Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs and MoS Culture Arjun Ram Meghwal.
According to a communique issued by Rashtrapati Bhawan, Rijiju, 51, was allocated the Ministry of Earth Sciences portfolio. And hours after Meghwal was given independent charge of the Ministry of Law and Justice, Union Minister of State for Law and Justice SP Singh Baghel was moved to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
Rijiju’s exit comes amid a deepening stand-off between the judiciary and the executive. An outsider to Delhi’s legal circles, Rijiju had taken on the judges, rather brusquely, on several key issues from appointments to judicial accountability.
“His public utterances not only caused the government embarrassment many a time, they also put the government under direct attack from the opposition,” said a source in the BJP.
Rijiju’s remarks against the collegium system and his calling some retired judges as being part of an “anti-India” trying to make the judiciary play the role of the Opposition party evoked criticism from several quarters, especially the Opposition.
Rijiju was named Law Minister on July 7, 2021. The Sports Minister and the Minister of State for Minority Affairs at that time, Rijiju got the portfolio following the resignation of senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad.
Moreover, a string of recent Supreme Court decisions — from the issue of appointment of Election Commissioners, verdicts on the political tussles in Maharashtra and Delhi are learnt to have been examined in this context.
In November, Rijiju had said that the collegium system was “alien to the Constitution” and criticised the Supreme Court’s complaint on delay in appointment of judges. “Never say that the government is sitting on the files, then don’t send the files to the government, you appoint yourself, you run the show…” he had said.
Days later, the Supreme Court had openly objected to Rijiju’s stance. “Till this law stands, if the government says we will not adhere to the law of the land, tomorrow someone else will say they also will not follow the law of the land. Look at the larger picture…Please, resolve this and don’t make us take a judicial decision in this regard,” a bench led by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul had told Attorney General R Venkataramani.
It was during his time as law minister that in an unprecedented move, the Supreme Court initiated contempt action against the government for delay in appointment of judges.
The Collegium also made the objections of the government public. In January, the Supreme Court collegium, headed by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud made public its reasons for reiteration of three candidates – Delhi High Court senior advocate Saurabh Kirpal, Bombay High Court advocate Somasekar Sundaresan and Madras High Court advocate John Sathyan.
In December last year, replying to a query on pendency of cases in the Rajya Sabha Rijiju had said that a constitutional body like the Supreme Court should not be hearing “bail applications and frivolous PILs.” A day later, CJI DY Chandrachud had responded that “no case is “too small” for the Supreme Court, especially when personal liberty is involved.
In January, Rijiju shared an interview clip of a retired Delhi High Court Justice R S Sodhi, who said the Supreme Court had “hijacked” the Constitution by deciding to appoint its own judges. “Actually a majority of the people have similar sane views,” Rijiju had then said in a tweet, a day after sharing the video clip of the interview.
Days after that, at an event organised by the Tis Hazari Bar in New Delhi, Rijiju sharpened his attack on the judiciary, saying that judges were not accountable to the people.
“A judge becomes a judge once, so he doesn’t have to face an election again. The public cannot scrutinise judges… That’s why I said that for judges, the public does not elect them so they cannot change them. But the people are watching you. Your judgments, the way judges function, the way in which you provide justice, the people are watching,” he had said.
A three-time Lok Sabha MP from Arunachal Pradesh, Rijiju, took over as law minister in July 2021.
Born in Nakhu, a village in West Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh, Rijijju’s father Rinchin Kharu was the first protem Speaker of the state Assembly. A keen follower of sports and politics, Rijiju, who also engaged in social work, graduated from Hansraj College and then studied law. At 33, he was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time in 2004, representing Arunachal West, and was noticed for his interventions in parliamentary debates. He was defeated by the Congress candidate by a thin margin in the 2009 election, following which he briefly joined the Congress.
In 2014, Rijiju returned to the BJP, then riding the Modi wave, and defeated the Congress candidate in the election by a significant margin. He made his debut in the government as the Minister of State for Home Affairs. His fluent Hindi — which he attributes to studying in then Union Territory of the North-East Frontier Agency — ensured that he was never out of place in the BJP.
Incidentally, at an RSS function earlier this month, Baghel had said: “Tolerant Muslims can be counted on fingers. Their numbers are not even in thousands. Even that is a tactic. It is to stay in public life with a mask. This route then leads to the house of governor and vice president or vice chancellor. But when they retire from there, they begin to speak their mind.”
Alluding to the debate over basic structure of the Constitution, Baghel had also said that the basic structure of the nation was Hindu Rashtra.
