Narendra Modi’s ascent as Prime Minister has raised high expectations of judicial reforms and improved systems of justice delivery, all of which deserve high priority as the new regime sets its house in order and begins to deliver on public expectations. At the top of the list is the manner of in which judges to the Supreme Court should be appointed. The Supreme Court collegium presented the outgoing UPA with a panel of names for appointment to the apex court, which included the names of senior advocates Gopal Subramaniam and Rohinton Nariman. Both lawyers have served as Solicitor General of India and have a sound understanding of law, but many feel that the elevation of lawyers to the bench normally takes place at the level of the High Courts and not the apex court.
Then there is a raging controversy over appointments of Law Officers to the Government of India, which has held up the appointment of senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi as Attorney General of India. The appointment was made known through the media last week, but has still not been notified, which suggests that the Centre is likely to reconsider the name in the wake of representations to the Prime Minister that the principal Law Officer should not be drawn from the ranks of lawyers who are representing the accused in high profile corruption cases that are still going on in the courts.
Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi has been representing 2G Spectrum scam accused Shahid Balwa in the trial court, and last appeared for him as recently as May 29. He also took on the case of the Italian marines after they jumped bail and their lawyer Harish Salve returned the brief in anger. The marines later returned to India after Congress president Sonia Gandhi, embarrassed by the turn of events, publicly rebuked the Italian Government.
Far more politically sensitive for the BJP is the 1984 riots, which the party promised to reinvestigate during the Delhi Assembly elections in 2013. Unfortunately, Mukul Rohatgi represents former Union Minister Jagdish Tytler (Delhi High Court) and former MP Sajjan Kumar (Supreme Court), whose names have figured in every citizen’s commission and official commission of enquiry into the anti-Sikh riots that followed the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. As the Sikh community is an important support base of the BJP in the national capital and the party is in alliance with the Akali Dal in Punjab, the appointment of Mukul Rohatgi as the nation’s foremost law officer would cause embarrassment to the new regime if it is compelled to appoint a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the riots comprehensively.
Further, Rohatgi also represents former Congress MP Suresh Kalmadi in the Commonwealth Games’ scam, another on-going high profile corruption case. Both the 1984 riots and the CWG scam are likely to figure in the BJP campaign if fresh elections are held for the Delhi Assembly this year. BJP circles are already demanding the resignation of Kerala Governor Sheila Dikshit so that she can be prosecuted for her alleged role in the multiple scams associated with the Games.
Then, to deliver on his promise of “Justice for All, Discrimination against none”, the Prime Minister will have to pick the best possible team to execute this vision. Yet the list of names doing the rounds is revealing. The appointment of Ranjit Kumar as Solicitor General, reputed to have been cleared by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC), has dismayed many as Kumar, who hails from Ranchi, is considered close to former Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, and reportedly helped organise several parties in Nitish Kumar’s honour over the years. As is well known, Nitish Kumar is a bête noire of the BJP after he summarily broke off ties with the party last year. On the flip side, Kumar has served as amicus curie in several cases.
The posts of Addl. Solicitor General have been awarded to and Maninder Singh, Neeraj Kishen Kaul, PS Patwalia, Tushar Mehta and L Nageshwar Rao. Tushar Mehta has represented the Gujarat Government in several cases in the Supreme Court and is regarded as a fine legal brain. Nageshwar Rao was appointed as ASG by the outgoing UPA regime, and has been retained by the NDA; he replaces PS Narsimhan who was being considered for the post.
Maninder Singh worked in Arun Jaitley’s office in his capacity as senior advocate of the Supreme Court. He kept the office going when Jaitley became Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha and could not practice law. Neeraj Kishen Kaul is a former judge of the Delhi High Court, who quit after a few months and returned to practice. PS Patwalia is also a former judge of the Punjab & Haryana High Court who quit after a few months in 2009 and returned to private practice. He is the son of former Supreme Court judge Kuldeep Singh who was the head of the last Delimitation Commission, with a contentious record regarding the reconfiguration of constituencies in the capital.
Overall, observers said that adequate homework has not been done in making the appointments and that extraneous considerations and networking seem to have prevailed over merit in making the selections.
Narendra Modi’s campaign mantra of “Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas” had an important subtext of “Justice for All, discrimination against none”, which he upheld steadfastly for over a decade as Chief Minister of Gujarat, where he implemented a number of innovations to ensure speedy delivery of justice and clearing of the backlog in Courts. Some of these innovations included the first E-Court in Gujarat through the use of technology and the concept of Evening Courts to clear pendency. This work culture and ethic can usher in dramatic changes in the work culture of the national capital, but for this, the Prime Minister’s Cabinet colleagues will have to rise to the challenge of history and support him in making the right choices rather than stymie the process with their personal preferences.
Niticentral.com, 5 June 2014
http://www.niticentral.com/2014/06/05/judicial-reforms-vital-issue-for-modi-sarkar-230713.html