Vice President and Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankar on Thursday said that judges in the country have no accountability and the law of the land does not apply to them..Dhankar took a swipe at the judiciary as he commented on the Supreme Court's recent judgment on interpretation of Governor and President of India's powers in relation to the passing of bills.The judgment was rendered by a Bench comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan. "There is a directive to the President by a recent judgement. Where are we heading? What is happening in the country? We have to be extremely sensitive. It is not a question of someone filing a review or not. We never bargained for democracy for this day. President being called upon to decide in a time-bound manner and if not, it becomes law. So we have judges who will legislate, who will perform executive functions, who will act as super Parliament and absolutely have no accountability because law of the land does not apply to them," he said. .Dhankar was speaking at the valedictory function of the 6th Rajya Sabha Internship Program at Vice-President's Enclave today."I have no doubt parliament cannot script a judgement of a court. I have no doubt about it. Parliament can only legislate and hold institutions including Judiciary and Executive accountable, but judgement writing, adjudication is the sole prerogative of judiciary as much legislation is that of the parliament. But are we not finding this situation getting challenged? I am saying so because very frequently we are finding that executive governance is by judicial orders, when executive, the government is elected by people, the government is accountable to parliament, the government is accountable to the people at election. There is a principle of accountability in operation. In parliament you can ask questions, critical questions, because the governance is by the executive but if this executive governance is by judiciary, how do you ask questions? Whom do you hold accountable in election?" he further said in his address. He added that any incursion by one institution into the domain of the other poses a challenge "which is not good". .Article 142 a nuclear missile.He also flagged the overreliance by the Supreme Court on Article 142 of the Constitution. Article 142 of the Constitution, which gives the Supreme Court special powers, "has become a nuclear missile against democratic forces, available to the judiciary 24x7," he stated. .Justice Yashwant Varma controversy.In his speech, the Vice President also criticized the procedure for probing the allegations against judges.In particular, he referred to the discovery of cash at Justice Yashwant Varma's residence and questioned how an inquiry panel setup by the top court can probe him without a First Information Report (FIR). He said that for seven days after the incident, no one knew about the incident which has put one of the institutions of the country "in the dock"."It is now over a month, even if it is can of worms, even if there are skeletons in the cupboard, time to blow up the can ... time for the cupboard to collapse. Let the worms and skeletons in public domain so that cleansing takes place," he added.Though Dhankar clarified that he must not be understood to be casting aspersions on any individual, he said a criminal investigation was required into allegations."No investigation under law is in progress at the moment because for a criminal investigation, the initiation has to be by an FIR. First Information Report. It is not there. Every cognizable is required to be reported to the police and failure to a cognizable offence is a crime," Dhankar said.He added that an FIR can be registered against anybody including constitutional authorities but in cases of judges, a permission is required for it."An FIR in this country can be registered against anyone, any constitutional functionary including the one before you. One has only to activate the rule of law no permission is required but if it is judges their category ... FIR cannot be straightway registered. It has to be approved by the concerned in judiciary but that is not given in the Constitution. Constitution of India has accorded immunity from prosecution only to the Hon'ble President and the Hon'ble Governors so how come a category beyond law has secured this immunity because the ill effects of this are being felt in the mind of one and all.".Commenting on Supreme Court's in-house inquiry against Justice Varma, Dhankar said,"A question we must think, there is a committee of three judges investigating the matter but investigation is domain of the executive. Investigation is not the domain of judiciary. Is the committee under constitution of India? No. Is this committee of three judges having any sanction under any law emanating from Parliament? No. What can the committee do, committee can at the most make a recommendation. Recommendation to whom and for what? The kind of mechanism we have for judges, the only action finally that can be taken is by the Parliament, when proceedings of removal are initiated. A month has passed more than that and investigation requires speed, expedition, preservation of incriminating material. As a citizen of the country and holding position which I do, I am concerned. Are we not diluting rule of law? Are we not answerable to? ‘We the people’ who gave us the Constitution."He made an appeal to "everyone concerned" to examine this as a test case."What legitimacy and jurisdictional authority does this committee possess. Can we have separate law made by a category and the law made by that category dehors constitution, dehors Parliament. The committee report according to me inherently lacks legal standing," Dhankar said.
