New Delhi: Union minister Kiren Rijiju was Thursday removed as Union law minister and moved to the Ministry of Earth Sciences. Arjun Ram Meghwal previously Union Minister of State for Culture, has been given independent charge of the law ministry as minister of state, the President’s office said in a statement.
Rijiju’s tenure as law minister was marked by several controversial statements on the judiciary.
In December last year, Rijiju had told the Rajya Sabha that a constitutional body like the Supreme Court should not be hearing “bail applications and frivolous PILs [public interest litigation]’’ at a time when pendency of cases was so high.
Two days after this comment, the Supreme Court explained in a judgment why it hears “small and routine matters”.
Amid a tussle on appointment of judges, Rijiju had also written a letter to Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud on 6 January this year, suggesting the inclusion of a government nominee in the decision-making process for shortlisting judges for the Supreme Court and high courts across the country.
Rijihu has suggested inclusion of a government representative in the “search-cum-evaluation committee” that will provide inputs on “suitable candidates” to the appointment panel or the collegium. The letter said that the suggestion was being made since the finalisation of the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) regarding appointment of judges is still “pending”.
In another letter written in August 2021, Rijiju had asked the Supreme Court to fine-tune and supplement the existing MoP to formalise the appointment of ad-hoc judges.
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Statement against Rijiju
In March this year, over 300 lawyers of the Supreme Court and various high courts had written a strongly-worded statement condemning Rijiju’s remarks at a conclave organised by media group India Today on 18 March. In his speech, the minister had said: “It is a few of the retired judges, few — maybe three or four — (a) few of those activists, part of that anti-India gang, these people are trying to make Indian judiciary play role of the opposition party.”
He added that law enforcement agencies were working under the law to take action against those who work against the government.
“Nobody will escape. Don’t worry, nobody will escape,” Rijiju had said in his speech.
Condemning his comments, the statement by Supreme Court lawyers — signed by the likes of Kapil Sibal, Rebecca John, Gopal Sankaranarayanan, and Arvind Datar — said, “We condemn these remarks in unambiguous terms. Such hectoring and bullying are unbecoming of the high office held by the Minister.” The statement especially took exception to Rijiju’s remarks that “a few retired judges” were “part of the anti-India” gang.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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