Mr. President, I have come here purposely to warn the House against the acceptance of the suggestion made by my Friend Mr. Shibban Lal Saksena. He seems to think that any appointment which is made should be subject to confirmation by two-thirds majority of the Houses of Parliament. I submit that this is a very dangerous principle. Confirmation by two-thirds majority of the Houses Parliament means that the appointment will be at the pleasure of the leader of the majority party. Already there have been suggestions that the present Government–the Ministers in different provinces– are interfering at times with the administration of justice. Recently, very adverse remarks were made by Mr. Justice Beaumont, Judge of the Privy Council. In the course of delivering a judgment, the Judge observed that he was constrained to say that the Congress was at one time very anxious to have separation of the judiciary and the executive and now that it has come to power they seemed to like that the old system should continue. This utterance by a very eminent Judge that there is at times room for the executive to interfere with the course of justice and this might lead to very serious consequences in future. I would therefore warn the House not to accept any proposal aimed at giving the House power to confirm the appointment of judges or agree to the suggestion that action for the removal of a judge can be taken by Parliament itself. That sort of thing should not be allowed to be accepted for a moment.
