NEW DELHI: In a hard-hitting rebuke of the Modi government, Chief Justice of India R M Lodha on Tuesday accused it of interference in the judiciary by rejecting the candidature of former solicitor-general Gopal Subramanium unanimously recommended by the collegium of the Supreme Court judges, he headed.
“Independence of judiciary will never be compromised,” he affirmed at a function organised to bid farewell to Supreme Court judge B S Chauhan on his retirement on Tuesday. He took the government’s refusal to go by the collegium recommendation as an affront to the judiciary.
The Law Ministry sources immediately went into damage control, affirming that the government has the highest regards for the judiciary. They said the government has right to return any name to request the collegium to give a second thought to its recommendation and that too was done giving full reasons why the government has reservation in elevating Subramanium to the highest court in the country as a judge.
The CJI took offence to the government endorsing appointment of three others as the judges while segregating the name of Subramanium and returning it to the collegium for reconsideration. “The segregation was unilaterally done by the executive without my knowledge and consent,” he said, expressing his anguish as it happened when he was abroad.
Subramanium’s name had been recommended for appointment to the Supreme Court bench by its collegium along with three others, Chief Justices of Calcutta and Odisha High Courts Arun Mishra and Adarsh Kumar Goyal respectively and another former solicitor general Rohinton Nariman. While returning only his name, the government recommended appointment of the remaining three and the President has already signed orders of their appointment.
The CJI also took strong exception to Subramanium making public a 9-page letter he wrote accusing the judiciary of not standing by him after his name was returned by the government citing adverse IB and CBI reports. Subramanium had contacted him before shooting off the letter that he was not interested any longer to be a judge. The CJI asked him to wait till his return from abroad to discuss the issue.
Despite Subramanium withdrawing his consent to the judge, the CJI said he asked him to reconsider his decision but all that he got in response was a terse letter, saying he was not interested in the judgeship.
Subramanium had opted out of being considered for appointment as SC judge after lashing out at the Modi government for ordering CBI and IB to “scrounge” for “dirt” against him to scuttle his elevation because he had assisted the Supreme Court as an amicus curie (a friend of court) in the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case in which Amit Shah, a close aide of Modi is an accused. Subramanium said he was “targeted” because of his independence and integrity and though he has no direct evidence, his role in the Sohrabuddin case proved his nemesis.
