Judicial, electoral reforms law minister’s top priority

Friday, 11/01/2013

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CHANDIGARH: Union minister for law and justice Ashwani Kumar on Thursday said bringing electoral and judicial reforms in the country was his top priority.

Commenting on the shortcomings in the system, he said there was need to eradicate the use of money and muscle power in elections. He said the current system of appointment of judges in high courts should be revisited. Talking to reporters here, he said that with the passage of time, shortcomings had cropped up in the system of appointment of high court judges, and a bill in this regard would be introduced in the forthcoming session of Parliament.

Speaking about the reforms in electoral system, he said the central law commission had been asked to compile a comprehensive report on ways to cut the use of money and muscle power in elections; the commission had been asked to take suggestions from the Election Commission. “After compiling the report, we will approach political parties for discussion,” said Kumar.

The union minister, a Rajya Sabha MP from Gurdaspur, will address a regional conference on the Gram Nyayalya Act, in an effort to appoint judicial officers at the block level, here on Friday. Sessions judges from the districts, judges of the Punjab and Haryana high court, and chief ministers of Punjab and Haryana will attend the conference. Elaborating on the judicial reforms, the minister said the Centre was planning to introduce a system of nationallevel appointment of judges of high courts. “The government is proposing judicial reforms but it would preserve judicial freedom,” he said.

The minister said that i n order to expedite the delivery of justice, the Centre had decided to immediately add 10% more officers to the existing 18,000 subordinate judicial officers in the country, for which directions had been sent to the state government, and at a later stage, 25- 30% more judges would be recruited, for which the Prime Minister had given in- principle approval. For having more judicial officers, the Centre would bear all expenditure, said the minister. Referring to the recent gangrape case in Delhi, the minister said that on December 26 and on January 8, he had sent a communication to all chief justices of state high courts and chief ministers to expedite trials in cases of rape and other heinous crimes such as murder.

Answering a question, Kumar said he was not aware of the demand for a separate high court for Haryana.