Tainted persons won't be made judges: Moily

NEW DELHI: Evading any comment on the Justice P D Dinakaran issue, law minister Veerappa Moily on Wednesday said ���tainted��� persons will not be appointed as judges.

The government may revisit the procedure of appointment of judges and only those with merit will be selected for the position, the law minister told reporters here. He said the government would not like any ���tainted��� person to become a judge.

���Already there is a memorandum of procedure (on appointment of judges) which we are going by as of today. I am not reiterating that the same thing will continue. May be, we have to revisit the procedure,��� he said.

However, Mr Moily refused to be drawn into a discussion on the Karnataka Chief Justice���s elevation to the Supreme Court being put on hold in the wake of corruption charges. The government had indicated earlier that a decision on Justice Dinakaran���s promotion will wait till the discreet inquiry into the allegations against him is completed. The Supreme Court Collegium held back its recommendation on Justice Dinakaran���s elevation.

The government is planning to bring a comprehensive bill to deal with accountability of high court and Supreme Court judges. The legislation will cover the judges��� assets declaration, a bill on which was withdrawn during the previous session in the wake of Opposition uproar on the ground that it exempted judges from making public their assets and gave them immunity against an inquiry.

The bill proposes to put in place a mechanism to look into corruption allegations against judges. Though under the law there is an impeachment process, so far no judge has been impeached. Mr Moily said impeachment of judges will remain Parliament���s right.

As part of judicial reforms, government also plans to set up commercial courts for high-value cases above Rs 2 crore to make India attractive for doing business. Besides this, the ministry is planning to reduce the average pendency of cases from 15 years to just one year. For this, the ministry is exploring the use of IT as a key tool.