After extracts from sensitive reports of the Intelligence Bureau and Research and Analysis Wing were put in public domain by the Supreme Court Collegium, Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju has rightly expressed grave concern at the immature and short-sighted action.
He said intelligence agency officials work in a secret manner for the nation, and they would think twice in future if their reports are made public.
Rijiju was responding to reporters’ questions on some recent SC Collegium resolutions, which contained portions of IB and RAW reports on certain names repeatedly recommended by the top court for appointment as high court judges, being made public last week. The Collegium had dismissed the intelligence inputs as ‘irrelevant’.
The SC Collegium system for appointing judges came into existence in 1993 after the senior-most SC judges unilaterally upturned the precedent established by Bharat’s Constitution framers in 1950.
As part of the new system, names for judgeship recommended by the Collegium, consisting of 5 senior-most SC judges including the CJI, are scrutinized by central intelligence agencies and any adverse findings are then communicated back to the Collegium in strictest confidence.
If the government, which represents the supreme will of the people, objects to any name on grounds of national security or extreme ideological bias, it is prudent for the Collegium to drop that name and suggest others. But having grown accustomed to the unaccountable power it has stealthily acquired over the past decades (when coalition governments were more busy in clinging on to power, rather than ensuring that the separation of powers and supremacy of elected representatives enshrined in the original Constitution are safeguarded) and soaked in the belief that they are more ‘evolved’ than ordinary Bharatiyas, the Collegium now expects the government to bow down to its diktats.
The center has repeatedly returned certain names suggested by the Collegium – like lawyer Saurabh Kirpal, son of former Chief Justice of India BN Kirpal (nepotism is a serious problem in upper echelons of judiciary), because of his activist stance on LGBTQ+ issues which reflects a clear Western bias, but even more importantly because his gay partner is a Italian-born Swiss national, Nicolas Germain Bachmann, who works at the Swiss embassy in Delhi and is also reportedly a ‘human rights activist’ who has worked for organizations like the International Red Cross in the past.
For anyone with passing knowledge of the anti-Bharat and anti-Hindu bias of Western human rights organizations like Amnesty International, this alone would be enough to raise a red flag. Is the Collegium blind to the havoc unleashed by foreign-funded NGOs in Bharat under guise of ‘human rights and social justice’, or is it in tacit agreement with anti-Bharat forces that Bharatiyas need to be ‘civilized’ i.e. Westernized?
The CJI Chandrachud-led Collegium, while publicly posting sections of the IB & RAW reports on the SC website, also made the astonishingly flippant remark that “Switzerland is a friendly nation and therefore it does not have any bearing on national security”.
Switzerland is notorious for being a haven for black money hoarders across the world. Would a ‘friendly’ nation steadfastly refuse for decades to share bank account details of corruption-accused Indians? It is only recently, due to intense pressure from the Modi government and negative publicity in the non-West world, that Switzerland has reluctantly agreed to share some details of its opaque banking system. Switzerland has also joined other Western nations in condemning Bharat for ‘restricting internet access’, making it out to be ‘suppression of free speech’.
These Western countries sit in their ivory towers and lecture countries like Bharat they had previously colonized and bled dry. They are unmindful of the volatile situation in Kashmir and how the internet blockade after abrogation of Article 370 helped prevent the kind of deadly stone-pelting organized at a moment’s notice via internet messaging in the past. But when the twitter account of the US President himself is suspended for allegedly inciting a ‘violent insurrection’ or when the whole or Europe whips itself into a frenzy and blocks Russian media outlets, then you don’t hear a pipsqueak out of Swiss diplomats in UN.
Anyway, even if a country is truly friendly towards Bharat, does it mean we blindly allow individuals from that country access to sensitive constitutional corridors? Forget foreign citizens, don’t we have a veritable horde of so-called ‘Indians’ like Harsh Mander who would like nothing better than to see anarchy and bloodshed on our streets, just so that their favored ideology wins?
Incidentally, it appears that current CJI DY Chandrachud’s father, former CJI YV Chandrachud had recommended the name of BN Kripal as a high court judge in 1979; then in 2000, BN Kripal was part of the SC Collegium which recommended the name of DY Chandrachud as a high court judge. And now CJI DY Chandrachud is insisting that BN Kripal’s son, Saurabh Kripal be made a high court judge.
With such adamant positions and flippant remarks that side-step the very real concerns expressed by the govt. and citizenry, the Collegium has proved yet again why this colonial-minded, elitist and unconstitutional body needs to be reformed or disbanded at the earliest. The will of the people, as expressed through elected representatives, is supreme in any Republican democracy.
