Creation of a mechanism to hold judges accountable for any of their misconduct will have to wait further as a much-delayed Bill in this regard was not approved on Monday by the Union Cabinet, which decided to refer it to a Group of Ministers.
The Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill, 2010 was taken up at the Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh but there were deep differences over the issue.
Of the 90-minute Cabinet meeting, 45 minutes were spent on discussing the issue after Home Minister P. Chidambaram and HRD Minister Kapil Sibal, both lawyers, found flaws in the Bill like the quantum of punishment for a judge if found guilty of misconduct.
The Bill proposes that a judge can be warned, taken off work, censured or admonished, depending upon the misconduct.
But if the violation is serious in nature, the judge can also be impeached.
There was also disagreement on whether the Judges Enquiry Act, 1968 should be repealed altogether as the proposed Bill seeks to do.
Law Minister Veerappa Moily tried to convince them but considering the differences of view, it was felt that further deliberations should be held. In this regard, a decision was taken to refer the bill to a Group of Ministers.
The Bill, in its present form, lays down a code to deal with cases of corruption against judges of the Supreme Court and the High Courts. It also seeks to repeal the four decade-old Judges Enquiry Act, 1968 which deals with the process of impeachment of senior judges.
The Bill also has provision for allowing the common man to complain about the alleged misconduct of a judge. But the citizens will have to reveal the source of their information in complaints filed by them.
But a final decision on whether action should be taken against the erring judges will remain with the Government.
The Bill, prepared by the Law Ministry, provides for a series of committees to probe the allegations against judges before an impeachment motion is introduced in either house of Parliament.
While there will be one Scrutiny Committee for the Supreme Court, the other will be for the 21 high courts.
The Bill proposes to set up a National Judicial Oversight Committee, likely to be headed by Vice-President Hamid Ansari in his capacity as the Chairman of Rajya Sabha with distinguished jurists as members that will receive the complaints against the sitting judges.
The Bill also lays down certain guidelines or code of conducts for judges. The proposed law expects judges not to delay delivering a judgement beyond a three-month time frame after conclusion of arguments.
According to the Bill, the members of the higher judiciary should have no bias in judicial work or judgements on the basis of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth.
The other guidelines laid down say they should not contest election of any club or society; not have close association with individual members of the bar and not allow any member of their immediate family to appear before them in courts.
The Bill also proposes to make provisions for declaration of assets and liabilities of judges.
