Description
Oxford University Press Appointment Of Judges To The Supreme Court Of India by Edited by Arghya Sengupta and Ritwika Sharma
Appointment of Judges to the Supreme Court of India : Transparency, Accountability, and Independence
Edited by Arghya Sengupta and Ritwika Sharma
The National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) judgment, on the appointment of judges to the Supreme Court, has been the subject of a deeply polarized debate in the public sphere and academia.
This volume analyses the NJAC judgment, and provides a rich context to it, in terms of philosophical, comparative, and constitutional issues that underpin it. The work traces the history of judicial appointments in India; examines the constitutional principles behind selecting judges and their application in the NJAC judgment; and comparatively looks at the judicial appointments process in six select countries—United Kingdom, South Africa, Canada, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Nepal—enquiring into what makes a good judge and an effective appointments process.
With wide-ranging essays by leading lawyers, political scientists, and academics from India and abroad, the volume is a deep dive into the constitutional concepts of judicial independence and separation of powers as discussed in the NJAC judgment.
About the Editors
Arghya Sengupta is the founder and research director at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, New Delhi, India.
Ritwika Sharma is a candidate for the LLM (2017–18) at the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge, UK.
Table Of Contents:
Foreword
Justice Jasti Chelameswar
Introduction
I. The History of Judicial Appointments in India
1. From Kania to Sarkaria: Judicial Appointments from 1950 to 1973
Suchindran B.N.
2. A Committed Judiciary: Indira Gandhi and Judicial Appointments
T.R. Andhyarujina
3. Recovering Lost Ground: The Case of the Curious Eighties
A.K. Ganguli
4. The Judicial Collegium: Issues, Controversies, and the Road Ahead
Arun Jaitley
5. A Plague on Both Your Houses: NJAC and the Crisis of Trust
Pratap Bhanu Mehta
II. The Analysis of the NJAC Judgment
6. Judicial Review and Parliamentary Power: Reorienting the Balance
K.T. Thomas
7. Checks and Balances Revisited: The Role of the Executive in Judicial Appointments
Mukul Rohatgi
8. Opening up Appointments: Civil Society Participation in the NJAC
Madhavi Divan
9. The Obvious Foundation Test: Re-inventing the Basic Structure Doctrine
Raju Ramachandran and Mythili Vijay Kumar Thallam
10. Eight Fatal Flaws: The Failings of the National Judicial Appointments Commission
Arvind Datar
11. The Sole Route to an Independent Judiciary?: The Primacy of Judges in Appointment
Gautam Bhatia
12. Justice Lokur’s Concurring View: The Future of Appointments Reform
Alok Prasanna Kumar
13. Justice Chelameswar’s Dissent: Reforming to Preserve
Arghya Sengupta
14. The NJAC Case and Judicial Independence: Conceptual and Contextual Safeguards
Gopal Subramanium
III Comparative Perspectives
15. Comparative Law in the NJAC Judgment: A Missed Opportunity
Suhrith Parthasarathy
16. Judicialization of Judicial Appointments?: A Response from the United Kingdom
Chintan Chandrachud
17. South Africa—Analysing a Commission Model
Chris McConnachie
18. Appointments to the Supreme Court of Canada: Procedures and Controversies
Peter McCormick
19. Judicial Appointments in Pakistan: The Seminal Case of the 18th Amendment
Sameer Khosa
20. Judicial Appointments in Sri Lanka: A Politicized Trajectory
Rehan Abeyratne
21. Appointments to the Supreme Court of Nepal: A New Beginning
Semanta Dahal
Index
About the Editors and Contributors