Lok Sabha members express concern over issues of pendency, judges' appointment

Cutting across party lines, members in Lok Sabha on Tuesday expressed concern over the pendency of cases and questioned the effectiveness of the Collegium system for the appointment of judges in the higher judiciary.

The MPs were participating in a discussion on the High Court and Supreme Court Judges (Salaries and Conditions of Service) Amendment Bill, 2021.

Former union minister and BJP member PP Chaudhary( BJP) urged the government to revisit the Collegium system.

He also pushed for an All India Judicial Service on lines of IAS and IPS to appoint judges of subordinate courts.

''I request the government to revisit the collegium system...and the original spirit and object of Article 124 are required to be restored.

''Before 1993, when judges were appointed by the executive, one cannot say they delivered poor judgements,'' he said.

Coming in support of the bill, Chaudhary said that remuneration of judges - whether of the Supreme Court or high courts- in the country is less than that in the other nations.

''Where we are having parliamentary democracy, all the ministers are accountable. But it is very difficult to hold accountable the Law Minister because he has no role to play (in judges' appointment). He has no role to fill the vacancies available in the high court and Supreme Court,'' the BJP MP said.

Dayanidhi Maran (DMK) said the government should not interfere in the judiciary and raised the issue of fewer judges being from the Scheduled Caste communities.

Raising the issue of pendency, Kalyan Banerjee (Trinamool Congress) stated that justice delayed is justice denied Across all the courts in India as on September 15, 2021, 4.5 crore cases were pending.

''In the last two years, India has added 23 cases every minute to the pendency list,'' he said and also raised questions on the working of Collegium.

Collegium, he said, is under an administrative act and ''I have right to criticise every administrative act.'' Geeta Vishwanath of YSR Congress supported a national judicial appointments commission, instead of the collegium system to appoint members of the higher judiciary.

Members of the JD(U) and BJD were also critical of the Collegium system.

The bill seeks to bring clarity on when Supreme Court and High Court judges are entitled to an additional quantum of pension or family pension on attaining a certain age was introduced in Lok Sabha earlier.

According to the bill, in 2009 the two laws were amended to provide that every retired judge or after his death, the family, as the case may be, will be entitled to an additional quantum of pension or family pension.

Accordingly, the additional quantum of pension to retired judges of the high courts and the Supreme Court is being sanctioned on completing the age of 80 years, 85 years, 90 years, 95 years and 100 years, as the case may be.

However, in a writ petition filed by a retired high court judge Virendra Dutt Gyani, the Gauhati High Court in its order of March 15, 2018 had held that benefit of additional quantum of pension as per the High Court Judges Act in the first slab would be available to a retired Judge from the first day of his 80th year.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)