Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his Facebook post said the Supreme Court's verdict on judges' appointment was based on 'erroneous logic'.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said the
Supreme Court's judgment which struck down the National Judicial Appointments Commission for higher judiciary was based on an "erroneous logic". He said "democracy can't be the tyranny of the unelected".
In a
Facebook post titled "The NJAC Judgement - An Alternative View" Mr Jaitley said the opinion of the Supreme Court is final, but not infallible. A disclaimer at the end of the post read, "The views expressed are personal".
Citing the Emergency of 1975-77, imposed by the then Congress government, the Supreme Court had struck down a new law on Friday that would have given the government a role in the appointment of judges.
It said the "basic structure" of the Constitution will be violated if the process of selection of judges to the higher judiciary was to be conducted in the manner contemplated through the NJAC (National Judicial Appointments Commission).
Mr Jaitley said the key rationale behind the majority opinion of the judges "appears to be" the independence of judiciary, which he said was an essential ingredient of the Constitution's basic structure, but added that "Political bashing is the key to the judgment".
"The judgment has upheld the primacy of one basic structure - independence of judiciary - but diminished five other basic structures of the Constitution, namely, Parliamentary democracy, an elected Government, the Council of Ministers, an elected Prime Minister and the elected Leader of the Opposition," Mr Jaitley said.
The Finance Minister who was a senior advocate, also argued that the judgment ignored "the larger constitutional structure of India", the most important of which, he said, was Parliamentary democracy.
"A constitutional court, while interpreting the Constitution, had to base the judgment on constitutional principles. There is no constitutional principle that democracy and its institutions have to be saved from elected representatives," he said.
Mr Jaitley said that if the "elected are undermined, democracy itself would be in danger".
"Are institutions like the Election Commission and the CAG not credible enough even though they are appointed by elected Governments?" he added.