This refers to the editorial "Politicising appointments" (June 27). After spelling out all the homilies, and the promise of good governance, the new government was expected to show respect and work in tandem with other pillars of democracy. But the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party government, by withholding its consent to the appointment of Gopal Subramanium as a judge of the Supreme Court, has showed that it is no different from the erstwhile United Progressive Alliance regime, that took a dim view of judiciary. Not standing its ground and asserting its authority, the court not only lost its grip on what is purely a judicial matter, but also failed to defend its collegium's choice. The power struggle between the executive and the judiciary is not new since we also witnessed such a collision course in the previous dispensation, which termed court rulings as transgressions into the executive's domain. But the way the Modi sarkar is behaving amply proves that power play will remain a sore point. When the collegium is expected to have the last word in judicial appointments, and all the government is supposed to do is give its approval, the Centre's refusal to toe the line of the former clearly indicates that we are heading for trouble among constitutional entities. This does not augur well for a healthy democracy such as ours. Can we expect the president to intervene and remind the government to respect the authority of the highest court in the land and its role in a democratic set-up?
R Prabhu Raj Chennai
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