New Delhi: The Law Minister- D. V. Sadananda Gowda pronounced the decision of the Government, which was decided against the bringing appointment to the Higher Judiciary under the Purview of Right to Information Act. The statements were preferred by the Law minister yesterday, i.e. on 8th March while noting the transparency can be achieved even without it.
A document to guide appointments in the honourable Supreme Court of India and Twenty- Four High Courts in the country- being the revised draft Memorandum of Procedure- MoP is, as per the Law Minister, in the final stage and the same will be sent to the Chief Justice of India soon.
When the Law Minister was asked a question that whether the draft MoP refers to brining the Judicial appointments under the ambit of the right to information law, he replied negative saying “no” to it. It was seen that the Law Minister- Gowda was addressing to a Press Conference on the issue related to the Law Ministry, when he was asked the question as to bringing the appointments of the Higher Judiciary in the purview of RTI Act.
He was also asked with the question that if Section 8 of the RTI Act does not exclude the Judicial appointments, then why is the Govt. on the ‘backfoot’ on the issue, thus he replied to the question that the “transparency can be attained without RTI Act also”. Moreover, he answered to have meet with the Chief Justice of India in the process of drafting MoP, however, he refused to comment further. He said that the Executive and also Judiciary is having responsibility in the connection with drafting of the MoP that to agree on the final draft. Also, the he (Law Minister- Gowda) said that in the view of drafting of the a new MoP is likely to take ‘some time’ and also considering that there are large number of vacancies, the issue was taken up with the honourable Apex Court and the process of appointment of the Judges in the higher judiciary has been resumed.
Adv. Faim Khalilkhan Pathan