Another plea in SC challenging constitutional validity of NJAC

A petition was today filed in the Supreme Court challenging the constitutional validity of the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) for appointment of judges in the higher judiciary.
The petition challenged the legality and constitutional validity of the NJAC Act, 2014 and the Constitution (121st Amendment) Bill, 2014 alleging that it violated the basic structure of the Constitution.
The petition, filed by NGO Centre for Public Interest Litigation, said that only a full-time body which functions with transparency can make proper appointments and the current NJAC was neither full time nor transparent.
The petition filed through advocate Prashant Bhushan said the political executive was not interested in creating an independent full-time body as existed in United Kingdom to select judicial appointees. It has created NJAC as an ex-officio body vide the constitutional amendment last year.

"Thus, the NJAC is conceived as an ex-officio body of people who would have little time to devote to appointments and does not lay down any standards of transparency in the appointments," it said.
The plea further said that judicial integrity, judicial independence and judicial review are part of basic structure of Constitution and to ensure it, "best persons" should be appointed as judges in the apex court as well as high courts.

"Judicial integrity is not only to be ensured by insulating the judges after their appointment, but also by ensuring that best persons are appointed as Judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts...Anything less than that would ipso facto violate the basic structure of our constitution, which includes judicial integrity, judicial independence and judicial review," it said.

The petition said the 99th Constitution Amendment Act only established a largely ex-officio body having three sitting judges of the Supreme Court, the sitting law minister and two jurists.
"Selecting more than 100 judges of the higher judiciary every year (from amongst thousands of potential candidates) in a rational and fair manner is an onerous task requiring a full-time and not an ex-officio body," it said.
The plea by CPIL comes almost over a month after the apex court had on January 6, declined to give an urgent hearing on a bunch of similar petitions.