Jagdeep Dhankhar

The sharp attacks of the government on the judiciary have seen the latter giving as good as it gets. What does this acrimony augur for litigants and constitutional institutions and offices? 

As the judges’ appointment issue threatens to snowball into a major controversy, Sanjay Raman Sinha spoke to two former chief justices of India to gauge their views on the collegium and the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC).

The friction between the CPI(M)-led government in Kerala and Governor Arif Mohammad Khan—who is the chancellor of all the universities—over appointment of vice-chancellors (VCs) in various universities has become a major political issue.

The NDA has declared Jagdeep Dhankhar as its candidate for the office of vice-president, the second highest constitutional office in the country. If elected, he will be the first farmer’s son elected to this august office.

In a recent development, the Rajasthan government is bringing in a legislation to give the chief minister the power to appoint chancellors for the 28 state-funded universities.

Our Constitution is a constructive one. There is no room for absolutism. There is no space for anarchy. Sometimes it is argued, though, in a different context, that one can be a ‘rational anarchist’, but the said term has no term in the constitutional governance and the rule of law. Fulfilment of constitutional idealism ostracizing anything that is not permissible by the language of the provisions of the Constitution and showing to its spirit and silence with a sense of reawakening to the vision of the great living document is, in fact, constitutional renaissance,” observed Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra in his judgment in the famous Delhi government case in 2018.

By Advocate Vikas Bansal...