Shantaram Naik, Congress Rajya Sabha member and former chairman of chairperson of a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Law and Justice, on Tuesday asserted that retired judges should go through a ‘cooling time’ (cooling-off period) before taking up other positions offered by governments.
Responding to a question at the Congress House here over the proposed appointment of the former Supreme Court Chief Justice P. Sathasivam as Kerala Governor, Mr. Naik said: “Ideally a cooling period is needed for all Supreme Court and High Court judges before accepting not only such appointments but also chairmanship of commissions and such bodies.”
However, he declined to elaborate on what would be the ideal “cooling-off period” for judges in such matters, saying it has to be worked out.
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Mr. Naik criticised the Modi-led government for the controversy over Teachers Day celebrations and alleged that the BJP had converted the issue into “one step towards saffronisation”.
“They are trying to do everything in education, put their own policies to suit saffronisation,” Mr. Naik said attacking BJP for moves to promote Dina Nath Batra of the RSS as educationist to guide the Centre’s education policies.
Raising the issue of the annual budget tabled , Mr. Naik said it had obsessive emphasis on the Public Private Partnership(PPP) model sans a legislation on PPP in place.
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With no legislation to protect its interests, the government would suffer tremendous losses, he said.
On the black money issue , Mr. Naik criticised the Centre saying the commission would take years to come out with its report.