The Department of Justice receives complaints about sitting as well as retired judges but is only concerned with the appointment and transfer of sitting ones – a written reply that came from Law Minister Kiren Rijiju in the Budget Session.
He furnished this written reply to a question asked to him, which was whether a few former judges of Apex Court are part of the “Anti-India” gang. This query was put up by two Rajya Sabha members i.e., Samajwadi Party member Javed Ali Khan and Janata Dal-United’s Ram Nath Thakur. Their questions came up as a consequence of statements made by Rijiju last month while speaking to the India Today Conclave.
It is essential in the above context to know that while speaking at India Today Conclave last month i.e., in March, Law Minister Rijiju said that the Indian Judiciary is being made to play the part of opposing parties by a few retired judges and some activists that are members of the anti-India gang. This statement was given by him during an ongoing discord between the Indian government and the Judiciary over the system of appointment of judges and was highly criticized and disapproved of by Indian Supreme Court and High Courts lawyers.
Moreover, he was even requested to disclose the source of information and whether the CJI and Union Home Ministry were informed of the same in recognition of the primacy of security of the nation. To all these questions, he did not provide a response in the English version (direct); his reply was a ” No/Ji nahi in the Hindi version (indirect)”.
He commented, “From time to time, complaints for both sitting and retired judges are received by the Department of Justice (DOJ) but the DOJ is concerned with sitting judges’ appointment and conditions of service only.”
Furthermore, he said that the Department of Justice does not handle or address any complaint related to retired judges.
Likewise, he informed that an “in-house mechanism” is pursued in High Courts and the Apex Court for upholding the accountability of Judges. This procedure was adopted by Apex Court in its full court meeting on May 7, 1997. The complaints regarding Justices of the Supreme Court and the Chief Justice of the High Courts must be brought up before the Chief Justice of India. The conduct of the High Court judges shall be apprised to the Chief Justice of the High Courts who shall be considered competent in this respect.
The complaints received by the DOJ are also forwarded to the above-mentioned competent authorities for appropriate actions to be taken, the Law Minister declared.
Written by Sonakshi Misra, 2nd year (4th semester) B.A.LL.B. Hons. student at Atal Bihari Vajpayee School of Legal Studies, Chhatrapati Shahu Ji Maharaj University, Kanpur.
