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Ministry of Law and Justice told the Lok Sabha on Wednesday that finalization of memorandum of procedure for appointment of judges is going to take more time. Earlier on December 16, 2015, a constitution bench of Supreme Court directed the government to draft a new memorandum of procedure for appointment of judges in High Court and Supreme Court. Since that time, memorandum has seen many ups and downs between the Centre and Collegium with their conflicting stands over several issues.
Centre firmly answered a question raised by MP Tejpratap Singh Yadav, who wanted to know “whether existing judicial system lacked transparency, especially when it came to appointment of judges”. He even sought to know the status of memorandum of procedure and its effect of pendency over the appointment over the judiciary. Mr. PP Chaudhary, Minister of State for Law and Justice and Corporate Affairs responded by making a reference to the Supreme Court’s judgement on former Calcutta High Court Judge, Justice CS Karnan. He asserted that following this judgement, the centre wrote to the Secretary General of the Supreme Court on July 11, 2017 highlighting the need for improvement in the memorandum of procedure.
He further highlighted the “process of finalizing the memorandum of procedure is likely to take time and come into being”. According to the sources, the existing memorandum of procedure is been relied upon for judicial appointments.
He further emphasized that in the year of 2016, 4 Supreme Court Judges and 14 High court chief Justices were appointed and 126 fresh appointments were made in the High Courts which is the highest number in a calendar year.
According to report of the year, 2017 saw appointment of 5 judges in the Supreme Court, 8 Chief Justices of High Courts and 115 fresh appointments of Judges in the High Courts. Furthermore, looking into the problem of appointment of judges in our country, Mr. Chaudhary submitted,” the prevailing challenges which the judiciary is facing is largely to be addressed by the judiciary itself as it is an independent organ under the constitution. The government is committed to the independence of judiciary and does not intervene in its functioning.”
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