Judiciary hostage to law ministry: SC

Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha.

The Appellate Division said on Monday that the judiciary could not function properly as it was hostage to the law ministry.
The nine-member full bench led by the chief justice made the remarks after the law ministry failed to comply with its directive issued two months and a half ago asking it to publish in official gazette the draft Judicial Service (Discipline) Rules prepared by the Supreme Court.
The highest court of the land reprimanded attorney general Mahbubey Alam and asked him to submit to it on November 24 the gazette notification of the rules that detailed the procedures of penalising lower court judges for misconduct and corruption.
The attorney general prayed eight more weeks to finalise the set of rules as the draft rules was sent to the president by the law minister after receiving it from the Supreme Court.
The chief justice said that it was ‘absolutely untrue’ as the law ministry’s petition for time did not mention when and how the law minister sent the draft rules to the president.
He said that he recently met the president twice but the latter said nothing about receiving the rules.
He reprimanded the attorney general saying that the judiciary was now hostage to the law ministry which did not carry out its directives on the excuse that the decisions were pending with the president.
The chief justice said that the Supreme Court had nothing to do when a judge could not be punished even after being caught red handed for corruption as the ministry said the matter awaited a presidential decision.
He said that the Supreme Court could do nothing when an additional district judge wrote to the president for removal of the chief justice as the ministry put the issue in deep-fridge saying that it was sent to the president.
Actually such things never go to the president, he said.
As per the Rules of Business, the chief justice explained, the ministry exercised the powers of promotion, posting and removal of the lower court judges seizing the president’s authority.
He said that the ministry did not carry out any Supreme Court order regarding suspension of the lower court judges for corruption and misconduct and it carried out the orders only which favoured them.
Following orders from the Appellate Division, the law ministry earlier sent the draft set of rules to the Supreme Court seeking its opinion. The draft included 18 rules.
The Supreme Court modified the set of rules increasing the number of rules to 35 laying down the procedures to be followed by the law ministry and the time frame for investigations to penalise errant lower court judges.
The government drafted the Judicial Service (Discipline) Rules to comply with a 12-point directive issued by the Appellate Division in 1999, under which the subordinate judiciary, the judicial magistracy in particular, was separated from the executive organ of the state.
The chief justice’s remarks came a week after he demanded restoration of the Supreme Court’s absolute authority over transfers, posting, promotions and removal of lower court judges by restoring the original Article 116 of the constitution as adopted in 1972.
He raised the demand in a statement posted on Supreme Court website to mark the 9th anniversary of the separation of the lower judiciary.
The chief justice identified the existing Article 116 of the constitution as one of the main impediments that slowed down the dispensation of justice.

Source: New Age