AAP Response on Supreme Court judgment on NJAC

The Aam Aadmi Party welcomes the landmark judgment by the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court striking down the National Judicial Appointments Commission.
The AAP is of the firm view that independence of the judiciary and a transparent system for the appointment of judges, both, are of equal importance, and are interlinked.
The Narendra Modi-led BJP’s central government tried to rush through the bill to change the appointment of judges in a bid to wrest control of the appointment of judges, and the Supreme Court has rightly quashed it, declaring both the 99thConstitutional amendment as well as the bill to create the NJAC as unconstitutional.
There is no denying the fact that the Collegium system for appointment of judges, which has been in existence for over two decades now, is not an ideal system and requires drastic changes.
The AAP objection to the BJP-led central government’s move is that any new system cannot be worse than the existing one.
If the collegium system is opaque, then the now axed NJAC was heavily loaded in favour of the ruling party and had it been implemented, it would have led to gross political interference in the appointment of judges.
The basic flaw in the NJAC was the inclusion of law minister in the six member panel, and also there was no criterion to define who the two eminent persons would have been, who again would have been political appointees.
The BJP’s central government should learn a lesson now and should first of all begin consultations with all stakeholders, including the judiciary to form a wide-ranging unanimity on this subject of extreme importance.