Former SC Judge Rohinton Nariman Suggests 30-Day Deadline For Govt To Accept Collegium's Recommendations

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Synopsis

The former Supreme Court judge said that the government was hoping that the collegium would change its mind if they sit on the name of the judges recommended by the Supreme Court collegium.

Former Supreme Court Judge Rohinton Nariman recently at the 7th M.C Chagla Memorial Lecture recommended that the Supreme Court should give a 30-day deadline to the Central Government for approving the names of the judges decided by the Supreme Court Collegium.

Justice Rohinton Nariman at the memorial lecture said that the 30-day deadline should be set by a fifth judges' case through a Constitutional Bench. He said,

“I would strongly hope that our Supreme Court has a 5th judges’ case. They would constitute another bench of at least 5 judges in which this Memorandum of Procedure finally whatever loose ends are there, tie them up and finish it. The constitution bench in my humble opinion lay down once and for all that once a name is sent by the collegium to the government, if the government has nothing to say, for a period of 30 days, then it will be taken that it has nothing to say.”

The statement was made in light of the back-and-forth communications between the Central Government and Supreme Court over the names recommended for judgeship. 

The Former Judge of the Supreme Court said that sitting on names is a deadly thing against democracy and the government is hoping that another collegium would change its mind. The judge said,

“This sitting on names is a very deadly thing against democracy in this country. Because what you are really doing is you are waiting out a particular collegium to hope that another collegium will change its mind. And that happens all the time. Because you-the government is continuous, you carry on for at five years at least. The Collegiums that come have a huge attrition rate.”

Recently, the Supreme Court Collegium headed by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud published on the Supreme Court website, a slew of resolutions containing reasons given by the IB and RAW for the government’s objections to the candidature of recommended advocates for judgeship.

In three such recommendations, the Collegium made public both its reasons for reiteration and the government’s objections.

While highlighting the recent action of the Collegium of making inputs on recommended judges public, Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju said, “Will address the issue in due course”.