Right time for NJAC: Dhankhar takes up judicial accountability with floor leaders-OxBig News Network

Amid a raging controversy over the alleged recovery of unaccounted cash from the residence of Justice Yashwant Varma of the Delhi High Court, Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar today met floor leaders of various political parties at Parliament House to discuss judicial accountability and other issues surrounding the row.

Dhankhar had, earlier in the day, said it was the “right time to reiterate” the NJAC Act that gave representation to the government in the judicial appointment panel.

At the meeting, Leader of the Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge is understood to have raised the issue of representation of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes, lack of a transparent merit-based appointment system and “uncle judges” syndrome in the judiciary, sources said. The meeting remained inconclusive.

“No conclusion was reached in the meeting today. The issue may be discussed in the House in the coming week,” Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi told reporters after the meeting.

Trinamool MPs demanded the issue to be discussed on the floor of the House, the sources said. The Centre was awaiting the report of the three-judge in-house committee appointed by CJI Sanjiv Khanna to probe the allegations of the recovery of cash from Justice Varma’s residence during a fire incident on March 14, they said. The sources said the Centre would work to build a consensus on the issue of judicial accountability and the possibility of reviving the National Judicial Appointments Committee (NJAC) Act, which was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2015.

The RS Chairman had held a meeting on Monday with Leader of the House JP Nadda and Leader of the Opposition Kharge on the Justice Varma issue.

“I seek your suggestions on one very important point. What emanated from Parliament as a historic development with rare convergence of unity since Independence found acceptance by needed state legislatures. We need to reflect on what happened to that,” he said, referring to the NJAC Act.

“Now is the befitting occasion for all of us to reiterate that because that was a visionary step endorsed by Parliament…. And imagine if that had taken place, things would have been different,” Dhankhar said.

The Rajya Sabha Chairman said, “This House, keeping dignity in mind, demonstrating dignified conduct, unanimously created a legal system in 2015 and that constitutional structure that emanated unanimously with one abstention from Parliament endorsed by state legislatures should be rule of law because it was sanctified by the President by appending her signatures under Article 111.”

Noting that he did not wish to be judgmental on any issue, Dhankhar said, “… but one thing which has found widespread acceptability in the country is that the entire material available with the Supreme Court has been shared with the people at large and with the constitution of a committee with that speed, I’m sure things will be available to us.”

He said, “Now, we are at a crossroads. I strongly urge members to reflect. There can be no breach by any institution of what emanated from Parliament, endorsed by legislatures. And that should again, I reiterate, be the mechanism holding the field. It is time for us, having seen such extraordinarily painful scenario… Innocence is something which we take at a very high level till someone is proven guilty.”