Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) for appointment of judges

Indian Polity Judiciary

There is a stalemate between judiciary and the executive over the proposed Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) for appointment of judges for the higher judiciary.

About MoP

IN October, 2015, a Constitution Bench led by Justice J.S. Khehar had revived the collegium after declaring the government’s NJAC law unconstitutional.
The Bench then went on to invite public opinion on ways to improve the opaque collegium system of judicial appointments. After receiving over 11,500 views from the public, the Bench had summarised them and tasked the government to draft a new MoP on December 16, 2015.
The government had submitted MoP to the collegium in August 2016 and tis had created impasse between the court and the government. No progress was made over this.

Highlights of the draft:

All Supreme Court and High Court judges to be able to recommend names to their respective collegiums.
Chief Ministers should also have the right to recommend names to the respective High Court collegiums.
Similarly, the Attorney General should be allowed to recommend the names of judges to the Supreme Court at the Centre and Advocate-General of States to their respective State High Courts.
These High Court committees would screen the names of the candidates, their backgrounds, the number of cases they have argued as lawyers, etc, before forwarding them to the High Court collegium.
Once the High Court collegium clears certain names, they would be sent to a similar appraisal committee at the Supreme Court. This apex-level committee would again sift through the names before they are finally referred to the SC collegium.
The government reasons that the two-fold vetting process – one by the respective High Court appraisal committee and then by the Supreme Court committee – would ensure transparency in judicial appointments.
The government has further asked the judiciary to fix an age for High Court judgeship and make it “non-flexible.” It also wants the mechanism for redressing complaints against judges to remain within the judiciary.

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