New Delhi: In an interview to discuss two serious questions raised by the Justice Yashwant Varma and Justice Shekhar Yadav cases, i.e. is the judiciary’s in-house mechanism for accountability ineffective and do we need to amend and change the way judges are chosen, one of the most former judges of the Supreme Court has admitted that the in-house mechanism for accountability is “faulty, weak and toothless”.
Justice Madan Lokur agreed that its application is often “selective and arbitrary”. He said “it should be statutory”, adding that “parliament should pass a law” in consultation with the judiciary.
In a 36-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, Justice Lokur also spoke critically of the collegium system for appointing judges, saying that it does need serious amendment. He agreed that both undeserving wrong people can be appointed judges as well as more deserving people excluded and not elevated to judgeship.
Justice Lokur also accepted that the collegium system, which was devised to circumvent interference by the executive, has often become a victim of an effective executive veto and failed to adequately respond to that.
There is also a significant discussion about how effective the collegium system is in appointing high court judges and whether it is particularly weak and infirm at this level. This matters because perhaps 95% or more Supreme Court judges are chosen from the high court judiciary and if the selection of high court judges is poor and faulty that will, in due course, afflict the top court as well.
Justice Lokur said we need a widespread national debate, to begin with within the judiciary, to discuss how the method and procedure for choosing judges is amended and changed to tackle the many problems he discussed in this interview.
