Former Supreme Court judge, Justice Kurian Joseph, has said he regrets his decision quashing the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) “after seeing things now.”
Justice Kurian was a member of the Constitution Bench which struck down the 99th Constitutional Amendment which introduced the NJAC to replace the collegium system of judicial appointments to constitutional courts.
He said this on December 28 while delivering the inaugural address on ‘The Challenges faced by the Indian Constitution in the Present Era’ at Kochi during the 13th National Conference of the All India Lawyers Union.
“I now regret part of being the NJAC judgment after seeing things now,” Justice Kurian said.
This is not the first time he has expressed his reservations on the majority judgement. At a book launch in May, Justice Kurian had said he was starting to regret the judgment. He had said that judicial independence was absolutely required but the “question is whether it should be absolute independence”.
