Ex-SC judge flags executive interference in judges' appointment process

Business Standard

3 days ago

Former Supreme Court judge Justice Madan B Lokur on Wednesday said there had been a considerable interference by the executive in the appointment process of judges.
He was speaking at an event organised by The Global Jurists on the topic 'Morality in Judiciary, A Paradigm or a Paradox'.
"Now, about the appointment of judges. We have had a lot of problems in the recent past. There has been, I think, a considerable interference by the executive in the appointment process," he said.
"The Memorandum of Procedure (MOP) was finalised a long time back. But despite the MOP, which was, by the way, drafted in consultation with the Government of India, there have been all kinds of problems in its implementation," Justice Lokur added.
In the appointment of judges, the former the former apex court judge said, "I believe, for reasons, that it has nothing to do with his merit. But it has something to do with a few cases that they decided,".
He said that if the appointment process of judges was in the hands of the executive, "a kind of mischief" could be played.
"You can appoint some person in the beginning, and a senior person can be kept pending for about six months or seven months so that he loses or he or she loses the seniority, and this is what is happening. Outstanding advocates who should have been appointed are not being appointed," Justice Lokur said.
He said the process of making the appointment process less opaque needed to be deliberated upon.
"Opaque not only from the side of the collegium of the high court or the collegium of the Supreme Court, but also from the side of the government," Justice Lokur said.
He said that at present there were two impeachment motions pending against judges, one against Justice Yashwant Varma in the Parliament and the second against Justice Shekhar Yadav with the Rajya Sabha Chairperson.
"I think for the first time in the history of the country, two impeachment motions are pending. I think we have to be very careful about the kind of persons that we appoint, and second, to keep a check on the judges while they are on the bench to make sure that these kinds of incidents do not happen," Justice Lokur said.
Underlining the importance of delivering easily understandable judgments, he said, "I had to deal with a couple of judgments written by a particular judge. The English that he used, nobody could understand. The judges could not understand it. The lawyers could not understand it. So you know, this kind of quality is being demonstrated now." Regarding the transfer of judges, he said, "On the other hand, we have situations where judges are being transferred left and right without any reason. Delhi has had the experience in the recent past of Justice S Muralidhar (from Delhi High Court) -- everybody knows that this was during the riots in 2020, for passing an order which, for some reason, the government did not like." Justice Lokur, on post-retirement appointment of judges, said, "Now we have had a situation where a former Chief Justice of India has been apparently rewarded by a seat in the Rajya Sabha. We have another judge who has been rewarded with the governorship of one state. The third judge has also been awarded the governorship of another state." "We have had judges who have retired and joined politics immediately after. We had a sitting judge who resigned and joined politics, and actually got elected as a member of Parliament. We need to sort things out," he added.