Supreme Court won’t take up cases against Judges’ conduct

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday sidestepped a demand by a section of lawyers to find ways to deal with complaints about the conduct of superior court judges, and instead indicated it would concentrate on ushering in greater transparency at the pre-selection stage.

This could leave a small window open for the government to step in to deal with this issue if it so desired at a later stage, after its attempt to set up a National Judicial Appointments Commission with wider representation to replace the current collegium system of judges selecting judges was struck down by the Supreme Court. The government had also declared that it would introduce a second law to deal with complaints of indiscipline and bad conduct among judges, short of the cumbersome process of impeachment.

The court itself had raised hopes of addressing the problem when it hinted at glasnost (openness) and perestroika (reforms) during its ruling on NJAC. But on Thursday, a five-judge bench – comprising Justices JS Khehar, Madan B Lokur, Jasti Chelameswar, Kurian Joseph and Adarsh Kumar Goel – unequivocally ruled out debating on the issue.

The bench instead said it would for now focus on injecting greater openness into the pre-selection process.

The AG said the names of the shortlisted people should be thrown open to the public before appointment. Some lawyers said it should be done at the initial stage. Others demanded reservations for the ST, SC, OBC and women. Right-wing ideologue KN Govindacharya suggested that potential candidates must swear an affidavit stating that they were not related to judges or lawyers. He also suggested that those swearing wrong affidavits should face penal action.