Congress Hits Out At Centre Over Ex-SC Judge Nazeer’s Appointment As Guv

New Delhi: The appointment of retired Supreme Court judge S Abdul Nazeer as a governor of Andhra Pradesh is being criticised by the opposition party leader. Meanwhile, Congress called the move of the BJP government a “great threat” to the independence of the judiciary.

Citing the late BJP leader Arun Jaitley’s remarks against such appointments, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said, “One of your (BJP) tall leaders sadly no more with us, Arun Jaitley, on September 5, 2013, in the House and several times outside stated that ‘the desire of a post-retirement job influences pre-retirement judgements. It is a threat to the Independence of the judiciary.”

“We are not talking about persons or individuals. Personally, I have very great respect for this person (Nazeer). I know him, it is not about him at all. As a matter of principle, we oppose it, as a matter of principle we believe it is a matter of great diminution and a great threat to the Independence of the judiciary for the reasons I have just quoted in the excerpt I played out,” Singhvi said, referring to Jaitley’s remarks.

The government on Sunday appointed six new faces as governors, including Nazeer, who was part of the historic 2019 Ayodhya verdict, and four BJP leaders, besides carrying out a rejig of the gubernatorial posts in seven states.

Nazeer, who retired on January 4, has been part of several path-breaking verdicts, including those on the politically sensitive Ayodhya land dispute, instant ‘triple talaq’ and the one that declared the ‘right to privacy’ a fundamental right.