Why we need a nuanced reading of Dr Ambedkar’s position on judicial appointments
Proponents of the NJAC across the political spectrum have relied on Dr Ambedkar’s quotes in the Constituent Assembly to highlight his disgruntlement with granting primacy to the judiciary on appointments. But before concluding whether Dr Ambedkar would have preferred the NJAC or the Collegium, we need a patient and nuanced scrutiny of the Constitution’s revolutionary framer.
Published on: 14 April 2025, 02:51 pm
TODAY, AS WE REMEMBER BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR on his 135th birth anniversary, there is a certain crisis of identity that the Indian judiciary seems to be confronting. On this exact day, a month ago, members of the fire department allegedly discovered piles of burnt currency in the residence of a Delhi High Court judge. Since then, the executive has prominently reframed a conversation on judicial accountability towards that of judicial appointments.
Notably, a significant way in which public consensus has been sought to be established regarding rejecting the Collegium system to substitute with the NJAC, has been through the invocation of Dr Ambedkar.
This is not a new phenomenon and a lot of it has been rooted in the Collegium’s very substantial failure in building a representative judiciary. A portion of the Ambedkarite community has lent support to the idea of NJAC precisely due to this - the law ministry last month indicated that 78 percent judges appointed to High Courts were upper caste, and a report I had co-authored previously had found that 36.4 percent of the Indian Supreme Court, as of December 2023, was entirely Brahmin.
A portion of the Ambedkarite community has lent support to the idea of NJAC precisely due to this - the law ministry last month indicated that 78 percent judges appointed to High Courts were upper caste, and a report I had co-authored previously had found that 36.4 percent of the Indian Supreme Court, as of December 2023, was entirely Brahmin.
Strategically invoking Babasaheb to forward the NJAC argument
In this context, it seems Ambedkar has been strategically invoked to build a case for the NJAC, but it has been done through, what I consider to be, a misinterpretive reading of Babasaheb’s nuanced position on judicial appointments.
On March 27, attorney general K.K. Venugopal, while arguing for a reconsideration of the NJAC decision, suggested that in the Constituent Assembly, a proposal to replace “consultation” with “concurrence” in Article 124 of the Constitution, in terms of the Chief Justice of India’s role in appointments, was “swiftly rejected” by Dr Ambedkar. He goes on to quote Ambedkar’s address on May 24, 1949, where amendments were proposed to the provision by members such as K.T. Shah. Ambedkar had said:
“With regard to the question of the concurrence of the Chief Justice, it seems to me that those who advocate that proposition seem to rely implicitly both on the impartiality of the Chief Justice and the soundness of his judgment. I personally feel no doubt that the Chief Justice is a very eminent person. But after all the Chief Justice is a man with all the failings, all the sentiments and all the prejudices which we as common people have; and I think, to allow the Chief Justice practically a veto upon the appointment of judges is really to transfer the authority to the Chief Justice which we are not prepared to vest in the President or the Government of the day. I therefore think that is also a dangerous proposition.”