New Delhi, March 13 Shiv Sena-UBT Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi on Friday demanded that all three branches of government – the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary – should be equal before the law, accountable, and open to scrutiny.
During Zero Hour, Chaturvedi highlighted the issue of an NCERT textbook containing a chapter on "corruption in the judiciary," on which the Chief Justice of India (CJI) issued directions, and NCERT issued an apology.
"On March 11, with all due respect to the Supreme Court of India and our judicial process, the CJI-led bench again said that the academics who wrote this chapter should not have any role in academic matters, public-funded institutions, or government institutions... which I think is judicial overreach and judicial dictatorship," she said.
She alleged that further court directions in the matter of taking action against those criticizing the judiciary on social media amounted to "judicial overreach."
"I believe that our three branches of government should be equal before the law, should be accountable, and should be open to scrutiny. Any dysfunctionality in that, or any kind of supremacy in that, will lead to a problematic situation for the nation to handle," she said.
"I request the law minister to ensure that there is no such judicial dictatorship or judicial overreach that can create problems in the future," the Rajya Sabha MP said.
She said one can understand the judiciary's anger at being singled out on the issue of corruption, but everyone should be accountable to the law and treated equally.
She highlighted that a notice for the impeachment of a High Court judge was pending before Parliament because a large sum of cash was recovered from his residence, but he was merely transferred and no action was taken.
Chaturvedi said that if an allegation of corruption is made against a politician or an officer, action is taken and a proper investigation is carried out on the charges, but in this case, there has been no such thing.