Letters: Supremacy and autonomy

This refers to Indira Jaising's article "Institutions of governance have surrendered their autonomy" (June 29) where she has passionately argued that withholding the name of Gopal Subramanium for the post of a judge of the Supreme Court by the government and the Supreme Court not making an issue of it has meant that the Supreme Court has surrendered its autonomy. I do not agree with this proposition at all. The procedure does not envisage supremacy but autonomy. And autonomy does not mean that all suggestions by the collegium must be accepted. She has used the expression that the government has "blackmailed" the Supreme Court by its veto power. Veto is the power of saying, "no". It is part of the procedure and cannot be called blackmail. It is an unfortunate expression which she should not have used.

She says that the people of the country will judge what is a relevant consideration for appointing a judge. Here she talks like a politician. She does not say what the procedure should be for people to judge the appointment of a judge. If she means referendum for each case, let her say so. That would be absurd in any case.

She may not be seeing beyond her nose, as she may be thinking only about the Sohrabuddin case, which Subramanium and she argued. But there are more things on "heaven and earth" which are beyond her knowledge and are in the possession of the government which the government is under no obligation to divulge and place for public debate. In any case, there have been media reports about the 2G case where the officers of the departments concerned have complained about his partial attitude. I cannot vouch for the veracity or otherwise of it. Indira Jaising has cleverly omitted any discussion on that issue since that does not suit her.

If the government thinks that it is in the public interest not to clear a file, it is entitled to do so, when the veto power is there.

Sukumar Mukhopadhyay New Delhi

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