\n
![\"JUDGESVSCJI\"](\"http:\/\/www.tehelka.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/JUDGESVSCJI3.jpg\")
<\/a>Unprecedented Development<\/strong>\nThe press conference is an unprecedented development in multiple ways. Apart from being a singular such development in the judicial history of independent India, it has brought to the fore\u00a0the much talked-about chinks in the top judiciary over a range of issues, including the manner in which the CJI allocated cases to his fellow judges in his capacity as \u2018master of the roster\u2019. It was also argued that the CJI had gone against the well-settled and time-honoured conventions guiding him in deciding the roster and allocation of cases to brother judges. In other words, at the heart of the present crisis there are two issues: how judges are appointed and how sensitive and big-ticket cases are allocated.<\/p>\n
A controversial order by the apex court in November 2017 had declared that the CJI \u2018is the master of roster\u2019 having exclusive power to decide which case would go to which judge. However, the letter released at the press conference contends that the CJI is only \u2018first among equals\u2019 and there were well-settled and time-honoured conventions guiding him in dealing with the strength of the bench required or the composition thereof.<\/p>\n
Undoubtedly, legal experts and\u00a0 media have dubbed the episode as \u2018unprecedented\u2019. Nevertheless, an gitation of near-equal proportion did occur in the Punjab and Haryana High Court over 13 years ago when, on April 18, 2004, 25 judges allegedly went on casual leave en masse to protest against the then Chief Justice B K Roy, who had sought an explanation from two judges for accepting membership at a golf resort near Chandigarh even though it was facing litigation for violation of environmental norms, among others.<\/p>\n
Independent vs. Committed Judiciary<\/strong> Asserting the difficulty in telling whether the ongoing developments will lead to a stronger Supreme Court or one weakened by a combination of infighting, questionable procedures, and opacity, it can\u2019t be said whether the present dispensation will take advantage of the weakness or work towards restoring the institution to strength. However, some legal experts do not rule out the possibility of the government taking advantage of a weakened judiciary, at least in the short term.<\/p>\n The executive-judiciary balance has been determined to a very large extent by the nature of political dominance the ruling party of the day could command from the very beginning in the1950s\u00a0and it was only in the mid-1990s that the judiciary stonewalled itself sufficiently against the vagaries of the politician\u2019s world. The manner of handling the case of the death of special CBI judge BH Loya, who was hearing the Sohrabuddin \u2018fake encounter\u2019 case in which BJP president Amit Shah was an accused but later discharged, is looked upon with suspicion by some experts and raises doubts about independence of the judiciary.<\/p>\n The decade of the 1970s witnessed attempts by the then government to have a \u2018committed judiciary\u2019 especially when Justice AN Ray was appointed, superseding three other senior judges, and second, when Justice MH Beg was appointed superseding Justice HR Khanna. Even in those times, the sanctity of the court didn\u2019t come into jeopardy, in the same sense as it is now, because those events were the doings of the executive of that day and the present crisis is the manifestation of the inbred problem within the apex court. A committed judiciary suits the ambitions of the ruling dispensation to implement its \u2018unconstitutional agenda\u2019 in a constitutional manner. The present crisis also affords an opportunity for the court as well as the government to finalise a mutually-acceptable and transparent process to appoint judges, which, while not being raised by the four judges, remains a contentious topic and one that, if not responsible for the current crisis, at least exacerbated it. Democracy functions through institutions and the judiciary is an important pillar of India\u2019s constitutional democracy, enjoying people\u2019s confidence. One can hope that the apex court will be able to find means of tiding over the present crisis and restoring people\u2019s confidence sooner than later. The unprecedented step of holding a press conference by four senior judges of the Supreme Court on January 12 to air their grievances, which were presumably being ignored by the Chief Justice of India, is being touted as both a momentous and an unfortunate development in the annals of judicial history of independent India. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":285222,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[481,23],"tags":[186,188,527],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285218"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSome legal experts opine that undoubtedly at the surface level the ongoing controversy may be confined to the attribution of motives to both the CJI and the four aggrieved judges in terms of a post mortem of case allocations by the chief justice, and the casting of aspersions on the abilities of some judges to whom the CJI has assigned cases; nonetheless, what lies beneath are more serious questions and the attribution of more insidious motives. In the aftermath of the ongoing developments, the Supreme Court of India may never be the same again, irrespective of whether the act of the four judges is seen as a revolt or a move towards transparency or whether it is justified or not. While the ongoing development amounts to a no-confidence motion against the top-most judge of the country and the ability of the Supreme Court to fix its own problems, the manner in which institutional weaknesses have been exposed entail the possibility of determining whether the subsequent moves would be constructive or destructive.<\/p>\n
\nWay Forward<\/strong>
\nMany legal experts opine that the present crisis isn\u2019t a political issue and parties of all hues would do well to steer clear of it. Let the apex court resolve its issues in its own manner sans political interference so that its independence is not jeopardised. The Supreme Court is one of the country\u2019s most respected institutions \u2014 and one in which a majority of Indians still continue to repose tremendous trust. It is in the fitness of things for the CJI to take the initiative and reach out to his colleagues.<\/p>\n
\nletters@tehelka.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"