Q. With reference to the Memorandum of Procedure for the appointment of judges, consider the following statements:
1. It is an agreement between the judiciary and the government regarding appointments of judges to both Supreme Court and High Court.
2. The government is bound to notify the appointments if the collegium reiterates its decision in second instance.
3. It specifies a timeframe for the central government to act on a collegium decision.
How many statements given above are correct?
Exp) Option b is the correct answer
Statement 1 is correct. Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) is an agreement between the judiciary and the government. It contains a set of guidelines for making appointments to the Supreme Court and High Court.
Statement 2 is correct. As per the MoP, the High Court Collegium headed by the Chief Justice of the HC initiates the process of appointment of other judges. If the Supreme Court collegium clears the names, the files return to the central government. The government then either notifies the appointments or sends them back with objections or its views. At this stage, the Supreme Court collegium can seek additional inputs on the government’s opinion. Accordingly, it can either reject or reiterate the proposal. If the collegium reiterates its decision, then, under the MoP, the government is bound to notify the appointments.
Statement 3 is incorrect. The existing MoP does not prescribe a timeline for the Centre to forward the recommendations. But the Supreme Court has recently set a fixed timeline for the government for the process of appointment of judges.
| Important Tips The MoP has evolved as the standard based on three SC decisions – the First Judges Case (1981), Second Judges Case (1993) and the Third Judges Case (1998) form the basis of a peer selection process for appointment of judges. |
