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Journalism of Courage
The Constitution Review Commission rolled back some of the recommendations that it itself set to limit ‘‘privileges’’ accorded to High Court and Supreme Court judges.
About three months ago, the Commission had unanimously decided to suggest a ban on post-retirement assignments to judges so that there is little scope for the Government to compromise their independence through such ‘‘blandishments.’’
It, therefore, recommended that the Government be allowed to offer only honorary assignments to retired judges and even for that they should take prior consent of the Chief Justice concerned.
These proposed curbs were radical considering that some of the post-retirement appointments for judges are actually provided for in law (for instance, the one concerning appointments to the National Human Rights Commission).
There was also an irony to the suggestion: Four of the 11 members of the Commission, including chairman M N Venkatachaliah, were former Supreme Court or High Court judges.
The proposed ban on paid post-retirement appointments to judges was among the decisions the Commission took in its 13th, 14th and 15th meetings. These meetings closely followed the unsavoury exit of former Supreme Court judge, Fatima Beevi, as Tamil Nadu governor.
The drafting committee of the Commission accordingly incorporated the proposed ban in the draft report, which was submitted to the full panel on February 15.
But in the meetings it held subsequently to approve the draft report, the Commission developed second thoughts. And the report submitted yesterday to the Government in fact says nothing about post-retirement judicial appointments, one way or the other.
Another significant departure the Commission made from its draft report relates to the proposal of applying the same retirement age for high court and Supreme Court judges.
At present, HC judges retire at 62 and the Supreme Court judges at 65. In a consultation paper released last year, the Commission aired the idea of raising the retirement age of HC judges also to 65.
The drafting committee accordingly incorporated the uniform retirement age proposal in the draft report.
But in its 16th and 17th meetings held a month ago, the Commission dropped the idea of uniformity and instead decided to propose increasing the age of retirement for both high court and Supreme Court judges by three years.
Thus, the final report recommends that Parliament should amend the law to allow high court judges to retire at 65 and Supreme Court judges at 68.
The departures from the draft report made to the benefit of judges prompted the chairman of the drafting committee, former secretary general of Lok Sabha Subhash Kashyap, to submit a separate note expressing his reservations about them.
One of the other dissenters was Sumitra Gandhi Kulkarni, who in her one-page note, claimed that the panel didn’t initiate any moves to debate any substantive proposals in public.
