Expressing anguish over the delay caused in appointment of judges, Supreme Court slammed Modi government for its inaction and reportedly said, “You cannot bring the entire institution (of judiciary) to a grinding halt.”
Chief Justice of India T S Thakur reportedly spoke in a harsher tone, “Today we have a situation where court rooms are locked because there are no judges. It’s happening in Karnataka. Why not have the whole institution locked up and lock out justice to people.”
The court warned that it may summon the secretaries of the Prime Minister’s Office and the ministry of law and justice to ascertain the factual position.
“There should not be any deadlock. You have committed to process the files for appointment of judges without finalisation of the MoP. Finalisation of MoP has nothing to do with the appointment process in the judiciary,” the bench, which also included Justices D Y Chandrachud and L Nageswara Rao, said.
Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the Centre, said that non-finalisation of the MoP was one of the issues and assured the bench that more progress will be seen in the near future on the appointment of judges, as per a news report.
Earlier, the apex court had said it would not tolerate “logjam in judges’ appointment” and would intervene to “fasten accountability as the justice delivery system is collapsing”.
The bench had said that if the government had reservation about any name, it could always come back to the collegium.
The court fixed the matter for further hearing on November 11.
In April, Justice Thakur had broken down at a meeting in the presence of PM Modi while talking about the pressure on judges and the need to appoint more.