Appointments, Assets, Leaves: House Panel's Big Remarks On Senior Judges

The representation of backward communities, women and minorities in higher judiciary is below the desired level and does not reflect the country's social diversity, a Parliamentary panel has said in its report. 

The panel also recommended bringing a law making it mandatory for Supreme Court and high court judges to disclose their assets annually to an appropriate authority.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice, chaired by BJP MP Sushil Kumar Modi, presented its 133rd report on "Judicial Processes and their reform" to both the Houses Monday.

The report noted the lack of caste-based reservation in appointments to high courts and Supreme Court, and said the higher judiciary suffers from a "diversity deficit".

"Though there is no provision for reservation in the judicial appointments at High Courts and Supreme Court level, the Committee feels that adequate representation of various sections of Indian society will further strengthen the trust, credibility, and acceptability of the Judiciary among the citizens," said the report.

The report pointed out that out of the 601 high court appointments since 2018, 457 were from the general category, 18 from Scheduled Classes, 9 from Scheduled Tribes. 72 from Other Backward Classes, 32 from minority communities and 91 women.

The panel recommended that the collegiums of Supreme Court and high courts should back an adequate number of women and candidates from marginalised communities while making appointments.

The committee also flagged vacations of judges and recommended that judges follow a rotational model instead of courts shutting for vacations. It said pendency of cases was piling up due to the long vacations of courts.

It said there there is a need to institutionalise the mechanism of regular filing of assets by the judges and putting it in the public domain. "...the Committee recommends the government to bring about appropriate legislation to make it mandatory for judges of the higher judiciary (Supreme Court and High Courts) to furnish their property returns on an annual basis to the appropriate authority," it said.

"It belies logic that judges don't need to disclose their assets and liabilities that when the Supreme Court has gone to the extent of holding that the public has a right to know the assets of those standing for elections as MPs or MLAs,” the parliamentary panel report said.