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The protest by the four judges did little except turn SC into a den of gossip and intrigue

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Unless larger reforms are brought in, the only consequence of the press conference will be the loss of public trust in the judiciary.

It was a dramatic and unprecedented call-out event in the Indian judiciary when four senior judges held a press conference. But a month later, no big change has come about. Instead, the apex court has turned into a den of scandal, gossip, and insidious whispers.

The judges—J. Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B. Lokur and Kurian Joseph— invoked the nation’s conscience that the judiciary needs to get its house in order. But since then, the public has learnt little about what happened and even the judges have gone back to maintaining a stoic silence on what will follow if the issues are not addressed.

The controversy will not die just because the Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra doesn’t officially respond. Except for what has appeared in the media, there is really no communication with the bar or the public. The only conversation in legal circles then has been reduced to speculation and rumour.

On 12 January, the four judges dramatically rose from the court at 11.45 am instead of the usual 2 pm and went to Justice Chelameswar’s residence. A crowd gathered in the corridor and saw the lights on the display board dim suddenly.

Four days after that Justice Chelameswar’s unannounced leave of absence added to the crisis. The usual protocol is that lawyers whose cases are listed before the judge who takes leave are informed in advance. It turned out that the judge had taken a sick leave but for a few hours it left everyone wondering if the judge was boycotting court.

In the following days, every action of the judge — from the time he entered the courtroom to the time he was allotted a case — was analysed in the context of the tussle between them.

After negotiations for a couple of weeks, the CJI did make public the roster for allocating work to judges. He also took it upon himself to hear all important cases, corking the issue of cases curiously being assigned to a particular judge.

While these measures may have ensured that the controversy did not swell further, it has no real or lasting effect on the systemic issues plaguing the judiciary.

For instance, there is still no protocol put in place for dealing with complaints against the office of the chief justice.

Unless larger reforms are brought in, the only consequence of the press conference will be the loss of public trust in the judiciary. Lawyers and even judges now talk in whispers in courtrooms on the events that followed the press conference.

As a result, the discourtesy, which is rare in the exchange between the bar and the bench, has never been sharper.

Some senior advocates would have brusque conversations with judges once in a while, but now almost every big case before the CJI now witnesses at least one hearing laced with commotion and rude commentary.

During the hearing on judge B.H. Loya’s death, senior advocate Dushyant Dave told the CJI that his case had “randomly been assigned to court 10 and was for some reason brought before the CJI again”. He was referring to the chief’s role in assigning this case to Arun Mishra first — an issue that perhaps was the latest trigger for holding the press conference.

The CJI did not engage with Dave on it but the collective sigh in the courtroom and awkward glances between other lawyers was hard to miss.

In another instance, Justice Misra had remarked that he is only a “junior judge who hears less significant cases”, when his courtroom was crowded on a particular day. His sarcastic remark was actually a pot-shot at the senior judges who complained that important cases were being assigned to him out of turn.

Justice Chandrachud has had to tell lawyers on several occasions to drop the banter. He has commented on lawyers being irreverent to the sanctity of a courtroom and lowering the discourse to that of a fish market.

But just days before he made the ‘fish market’ remark, senior lawyer Shyam Divan had said before a constitution bench hearing the cases related to the legality of Aadhaar that the judges who will rule in favour of the government will henceforth be known as “Aadhaar judges”.

Chandrachud, on that bench, was quick to retort that he would not mind being called a “nationalist judge” and then went on to add that lawyers cannot browbeat judges into giving favourable decisions.

This is a time when the attorney general K.K. Venugopal, also a senior member of the bar, should have taken a bigger role in forging a consensus. But his slipshod statements that the crisis has been resolved by his intervention, which he retracted a day later, only made the situation worse.

While judges still don’t trust other judges and the chief justice to safeguard the institution, they are quickly losing their own credibility. Each passing day is more ammunition to tarnish the judiciary. The judges have no choice but to act before it is too late.

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3 COMMENTS

  1. I have been following the recent Aadhaar hearings in detail. I have no relation to anyone involved in that case. Please correct your inaccurate statement on what Counsel Shyam Divan said. This report has twisted his statement just like sensationalist TV news channels would donfor ratings. I don’t believe the print.in would stoop to those levels. A correction and an admission of error would go a long way in maintaining your credibility and impartiality.

  2. CJI is a man of integrity and undoubtedly a Judge with intelligence. His social reform judgements speak the volume of labour he is putting in and his excellent judicial acumen.

    Only way to end the controversy is to have trust in the CJI. After all he is there not by politics but by his hard work and intelligence.

  3. Who will set the roster ? Should the litigants have a say in choosing a bench? Should there be arguments for bench shopping? Should there be an appeallate authority too to decide about Bench. All these complications can be avoided by having faith in Chief Justice of India. After all, he is chief.

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