Govt's bounden duty to accept Collegium decisions: Ex-judge

Satya Prakash

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New Delhi, January 27

As the Centre repeatedly questioned the Collegium system of appointing judges, former Supreme Court judge Justice Rohinton Nariman on Friday said it was the “bounden duty” of the government to accept the Supreme Court’s decisions on judicial appointments and the doctrine of basic structure.

Delivering the ‘7th MC Chagla Memorial Lecture’ in Mumbai, the former SC judge suggested the Supreme Court should set up a five-judge Constitution Bench to tie all loose ends of the Memorandum of Procedure on the appointment of judges. He said the SC should lay down a strict deadline for the government to respond to the Collegium’s recommendations, failing which it should be taken that the government had no comments to offer and the Collegium should go ahead with the appointments.

Justice Nariman said, “Whether at the end of 30 days or at the end of reiteration, the appointment also should take place within a fixed period… Ultimately, it’s how a Constitution is worked, and if you don’t have independent and fearless judges, say goodbye. There is nothing left.

“As a matter of fact, according to me, if finally, this last bastion (judiciary) falls, or were to fall, we will enter the abyss of a new dark age, in which Laxman’s (late cartoonist) common man will ask himself only one question — if the salt has lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted?” He also criticised the recent statements of Law Minister Kiren Rijiju against the Collegium system.