Why the Indian judiciary is in tears
For years, including earlier governments inaction on the inadequate judiciary's strength, the Chief Justice of India (CJI) at the time has bemoaned the lack of judges, despite judicial efforts to sharply increase judicial appointments.
On April 14, CJI TS Thakur looking at Prime Minister Modi asked, "how do you think judiciary's present strength of 18,000 can dispose of case pendency of three crore?" He bluntly told the PM, it is "not enough to criticise, you cannot shift (the) entire blame on (the) judiciary."
The PM gave a politician's lame excuse, that his government "will look into it (vacancies) seriously and try to solve this" in a closed-door meeting. Why a closed-door meeting?
The apex court collegium had sent at least 170 recommendations two months ago for the appointment of high court judges when many of the courts were working at 50 per cent of their strength.
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| PM Modi said government will look into the vacancies and try to solve this. |
The CJI pointed out with some anguish, "I don't understand why they are held up, where are those proposals stuck, we should know."
What about PM Narendra Modi's idea of a closed-door meeting? Given the gravity of the situation, surely he should have suggested something like this before. This is not the first time that senior judges have lamented the large number of vacancies in the judiciary, caused by executive sloth and even interest in having some say in the selection of new judges.
The UPA-initiated National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) was predicated on the desire to have significant executive intervention in the appointment and transfer of judges. Such an intervention is violative of the separation of powers doctrine, which is upheld by most democracies. But the UPA played into the RSS-BJP hands trying to force executive selection of the judiciary.
Fortunately, the NJAC did not pass. But something about judicial appointments seems to be going on, in closed-door meetings of the Modi cabinet. But are such important issues like the appointment and transfer of judges to be decided behind closed doors with the executive pressuring the judiciary in matters of appointment and transfer, when this is wholly within the purview of the collegium?
If the executive is going to intervene, why have a collegium? Because the NDA having failed to get the NJAC through, is now seeking to do some judicial arm-twisting to get select, "politically correct," appointments and transfers through.
In the meanwhile millions suffer. Hundreds of thousands of unfinished flats continue to be unoccupied in Noida and thereabouts, with middle class buyers unable to get accommodation or a completed flat, with the courts too overloaded to dispense justice.
I fought a case in the Delhi High Court against a former UPA-1 minister who had not left the premises of my house in an elite area of New Delhi. Thanks to a successive number of highly efficient high court benches and a very considerate single judge, I was very fortunate to get my ancestral house back within three years, though the costs were relatively high, and significant rent arrears remain.
But with such a backlog of cases justice is delayed, and thereby denied. However the fault cannot be almost largely placed at the feet of the judiciary, especially the higher echelons.
Rental and land laws are delayed by the executive, making the process of judicial determination even more difficult. It is said that the CJI was moved to tears. He will have the sympathy of millions, for whom justice is still far away.