Judges accountability bill watered down
Keen not to ruffle the judiciary, the government has reworked the stringent Judges Standards and Accountability Bill, dropping clauses relating to "punctuality" and "time limit for pronouncing judgments".
Both these clauses, aimed to take judicial discipline to a new high, were not liked by the PMO and former chief justices whom law minister Veerappa Moily consulted. He agreed to do away with them given the clear understanding within the government that there should be no ground for conflict with judiciary.
But the rest of the clauses in the draft bill approved by PMO has still a lot to make Moily feel upbeat about bringing in changes and transparency in the functioning of higher judiciary. It will soon be placed before the Union Cabinet, Moily told TOI.
The bill proposes to prohibit every judge of the Supreme Court and High Courts from speaking in public about political issues. No judge should become a member or contest an election in a society, club or organisation that has nothing to do with law or judiciary.
The bill proposes to give statutory backing to the voluntary code of conduct of 1997 adopted by SC and HC judges that spoke about declaring assets. But the bill has gone a step further -- it will be treated as misconduct if any judge does not declare or mis-declares his assets and liabilities. It will also be treated as misconduct if a judge owns shares in a company and does not inform the litigating parties when a case relating to the firm or its sister concerns come up for hearing. He has to take their no objection before proceeding to hear the matter.
Interestingly, the bill provides a two-stage mechanism to test the veracity of complaints of misconduct about a judge. All complaints will first go before a Scrutiny Committee, which will be there in the SC and every HC. This three-member committee for SC would be headed by a retired CJI to be nominated in consultation with the sitting CJI and comprise two more SC judges. The committee for HCs would be headed by a retired CJ of HC with two judges of the HC being its other members.
If the scrutiny committee finds merit in a complaint, it would be placed before an Oversight Committee headed by an ex-CJI, who again would be nominated in consultation with the sitting CJI. Earlier, this was proposed to be headed by Rajya Sabha chairman. But, this was changed after three former CJIs felt that RS chairman being the initiator of impeachment motion should not be seen to have already deliberated on the complaint against an errant judge.
However, the bill does protect judges from vexatious and frivolous complaints. Those making false complaints would be punished with imprisonment upto five years and also fined upto Rs 5 lakh.
