Democracy can’t be ‘tyranny of unelected’: Arun Jaitley

New Delhi: Terming as “erroneous logic” the Supreme Court’s reasoning for striking down the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Act, finance minister Arun Jaitley said on Sunday that Indian democracy cannot be a “tyranny of the unelected” and that it would be in danger if those elected were undermined.

Expressing his “personal” views on the court ruling in a Facebook post titled “The NJAC Judgement — An Alternative View?”, he said: “The judgement has upheld the primacy of one basic structure — independence of the judiciary — but diminished five other basic structures of the Constitution, namely parliamentary democracy, an elected government, the council of ministers, an elected Prime Minister and the elected Leader of the Opposition.”

The Supreme Court had last week struck down as unconstitutional the NJAC and the 99th Constitution Amendment Act.