There has to be an “extraordinary consensus” to change the way judges in India are appointed to the higher judiciary, Abhishek Singhvi, Rajya Sabha member of the Congress, said in an interview with Saubhadra Chatterji. He also dismissed a private member’s bill on a Universal Civil Code in the country. Edited excerpts:
Is your party trying to make an issue out of the government’s latest posturing on the National Judicial appointments Commission, a product of the United Progressive Alliance era?
It is sad, distressing and unacceptable. Firstly, a government with approximately one year left has no business of making fundamental constitutional amendments. Last nine-odd years, this has not been raised, attempted or pushed. Secondly, it is, of course, premature and hypothetical to react to an as-yet-unknown and unargued proposal of the government. Thirdly, even if the government were to come up with some proposal, and I cannot speak for the party yet because they cannot take a formal view till a proposal comes personally, my advice to them would be to oppose it.
The reason is simple. Over the last nine years, we have had a sea of change in the ambience of India, in the idea of India, and in particular, in the consistent and coordinated undermining of institutions. This includes not only the judiciary but almost every established venerable institution, from the EC (Election Commission of India) to the CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General of India) to the trio of investigative agencies, which have become even less than puppet government departments.
But NJAC was legal system brought by the Congress-led UPA.
Every part of the political spectrum, which might have, in principle, supported the NJAC when it was first proposed, I have no doubt would be alarmed at the proposal were it to come now from the government and would oppose it apart from the Bharatiya Janata Party led National Democratic Alliance. This government is a control freak government, and the control freakiness is being sought to be applied to the judiciary.
Lastly, in any event, something which has been invalidated on the ground of violation of basic structure would require an extraordinary consensus and a special kind of drafting to avoid a repeat of the same successful challenge this time. But, above all other reasons, in a nutshell, the track record of the government in the last nine years has shown that they cannot be trusted with any objective dealing with the judiciary. And therefore, I would strongly oppose any such initiative for it to materialise.
You are a member of the Rajya Sabha, whose chairman Jagdeep Dhankar called the Supreme court turning down the NJAC bill as “a glaring instance of severe compromise of parliamentary sovereignty”. He also disapproved Sonia Gandhi’s stand and said, it was “severely inappropriate” and showed “lack of faith in democracy”.
I would certainly not like to draw a constitutional functionary into any controversy. Like every citizen of India, each person is entitled to his views. But I would most respectfully disagree with what I see even as a larger, unacceptable and untenable questioning of two even more fundamental principles beyond the NJAC issue.
Those are our basic structure, doctrine and the very power of judicial review. Today, basic structure as a doctrine is the pride of India and the envy of the world. Several countries have copied it. It is undoubtedly the best bulwark against any official permanent dictatorship. I would, therefore, disagree with any attempt to dilute that doctrine, irrespective of the source of that attack. Judicial review in India is, similarly, the hallmark of judicial independence and the biggest armour against executive access. There again, any broadsides or assaults would be objectionable.
Coming back to Rajya Sabha, for the first time, a private member’s bill on the Universal Civil Code has been introduced. What is your response on this?
Firstly, that bill is unfortunately not worth the paper it is written on. If you see it, it is nothing but a single focus provision providing for and only for the creation of a committee, each member of which is either governmental or nominated by the government.
What is said is that it requires a consultation, convergence and consensus way beyond that which exists in the country today. No attempt is made by this government to generate those three C’s.
Thirdly, the government’s own Law Commission recently a few years ago has specifically opined that a UCC “is neither necessary nor desirable at this stage”.
But a few BJP-ruled states have announced they want to set up panels to implement UCC.
Is it anything more than a stunt? Is it anything more than a political gimmickry for individual BJP-ruled states to indulge in self-serving competition amongst each other? Has anybody thought of such a hare-brained scheme? Will you be subjected to Uniform Civil Code when you are in Uttarakhand and then be subjected to some other law when you travel to Delhi and then again be subjected to that law in Gujarat? Will your personal law keep changing according to where you are temporarily residing, visiting, travelling or working?
Your party leaders has claimed that Union law minister Kiren Rijiju is trying to orchestrate confrontation with the judiciary. Is there any basis for this allegation?
A deliberate attempt is made on a daily basis to create a confrontational equation between the executive and the judiciary by a person who unfortunately does not have actual experience of the operational reality of the legal system. Every day a different kind of statement or the same statement is repeated. When it comes to specifics, no actual proposal is produced.
Take another issue of holidays. But people forget that there are already a large number of vacation courts functioning in vacations. No court is entirely or completely asleep.
The Supreme Court in one week decides what a vast majority of the apex courts of every other country in the world do not decide in one year. Our high courts decide more than any other intermediate appellate court many times over. The real issue has to be that our 4.25 crore pendency has to be reduced.
