Fair play law to give courts their due

 Attorney General Soli Sorabjee gave this undertaking when the bench, headed by Chief Justice V N Khare, firmly told him the court would quash the clause if it was kept in the Act.

 The court was hearing a writ petition challenging the Act on the ground that bureaucrats have been given precedence over the judiciary in appointments to the commission.

 The SC had ruled in several cases earlier that quasi-judicial bodies should be headed by a judicial person. It had also held that the tribunals could not be put above the high courts.

 In this case, Section 39 had given the high courts a secondary role. Moreover, Commerce Secretary Deepak Chatterjee has been appointed chairman of the commission. There are no judicial members at all. The Chief Justice took strong exception to the government defending the constitution of the commission without judicial members.

 It argued that such commissions in foreign countries consisted of bureaucrats.