Govt has struck at the very heart of judicial freedom: former CJI RM Lodha
NB: Our 'patriotic' government is engaged in nothing less than the full-scale dismantling of the autonomy of the judiciary and the submission of justice - especially criminal justice - to ideological control. Crucial evidence disappears from court resulting in the acquittal of Hindutva activists accused of terrorist activities; the mysterious death of a sitting judge in a criminal case implicating the BJP Party chief has been hushed up; and the suicide letter of the ex-Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh has been consigned to oblivion. This letter contained allegations of corrupt practices against senior members of the judiciary (including the sitting Chief Justice); and personages across the political spectrum. All this is happening in front of our eyes, with the connivance of the country's highest judicial official and in blatant disregard of norms and conventions of lawful governance.
The Master of the Roster has magically congealed into His Master's Roster. Ironic indeed, that men with no respect for norms and conventions should demand respect and deference whilst engaged in dismantling those very conventions! Your status is conferred upon you by the chair you occupy sir, you were not born with it. When you do not defer to norms and propriety, by what logic do you demand that others defer to you? How do you appeal to the conscience of others when you show no signs of possessing one yourself? Do you really believe that the death of Judge Loya and the suicide of Kalikho Pul require no further investigation? Is this what our last court of appeal is reduced to?
Present situation in Supreme Court disastrous: Former Chief Justice RM Lodha
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The Master of the Roster has magically congealed into His Master's Roster. Ironic indeed, that men with no respect for norms and conventions should demand respect and deference whilst engaged in dismantling those very conventions! Your status is conferred upon you by the chair you occupy sir, you were not born with it. When you do not defer to norms and propriety, by what logic do you demand that others defer to you? How do you appeal to the conscience of others when you show no signs of possessing one yourself? Do you really believe that the death of Judge Loya and the suicide of Kalikho Pul require no further investigation? Is this what our last court of appeal is reduced to?
Present situation in Supreme Court disastrous: Former Chief Justice RM Lodha
Truly it has been said that a totalitarian polity is akin to a secret society functioning in broad daylight. So let us laugh and read Franz Kafka who had written a parable about the gatekeepers of the Law a century ago. Bharat Mata ki jai etc. DS
Four former Chief
Justices of India and another four former judges of the Supreme Court have
expressed their concern over the current standoff between the Supreme Court and
the Government and have questioned how CJI Dipak Misra has let the government
stonewall the Collegium’s recommendations. In fact, the
government’s “segregation” of the recommendations — to reject the nomination of
Justice K M Joseph, the Chief Justice of Uttarakhand to the Supreme Court, and
to accept the elevation of advocate Indu
Malhotra “strikes at the very heart of the independence of the
judiciary,” former Chief Justice of India Justice R M Lodha said in New Delhi
on Thursday.
“What governments do
by segregating recommendations, is (to) throw plans of the Collegium for
seniority or ensuring a certain succession of future Chief Justices out of the
window. By simply sitting over the file for weeks and then picking one and not
the other, a whole new succession comes into play. This is interference in the
judiciary, apart from, of course, rejecting names that the government doesn’t
find favourable.”
Justice Lodha added:
“The Chief Justice of India, in such a situation, should immediately call a
meeting of the collegium and take up the matter with the government. If the
reiteration must be done, it must happen immediately.” Significantly, he
underlined: “The Chief Justice cannot sit over the file either, indefinitely,
as can’t the government.” The Memorandum of
Procedure, which lays out the terms of engagement between the Centre and the
judiciary, “as is established and operational” does not talk of segregation but
the “settled convention is that the government cannot segregate the names,”
Justice Lodha said. Justice Lodha should
know.
It was during his
tenure as Chief Justice that the current government segregated one out of four
recommendations of the Lodha-led collegium. Recalling events in the summer of
2014, Justice Lodha said: “The Law Ministry, without my knowledge or consent,
when I was out of the country, segregated four recommendations of the collegium
and had certain problems with (the proposal to elevate) Gopal Subramanium and
did not appoint him. This was very wrong. I wrote to the Law Minister on June
30, immediately upon my return that it was wrong and should not happen again in
the future, that is, be done with any Chief Justice, henceforth.”
Justice Lodha
explained how by withdrawing his name, senior advocate Gopal Subramanium “deprived
the collegium and the court to take the matter to its logical conclusion.”
Justice Lodha said the current episode sends the wrong signal. “It is not about
seniority,” and “never before has it been only interpreted in this way.” In an
apparent reference to the ruling by Justice K M Joseph striking down the
Centre’s imposition of President’s rule in Uttarakhand in 2016, Justice Lodha
said: “It is very clear why his elevation is facing resistance.”
When contacted,
another former Chief Justice of India under this government, Justice T S
Thakur, termed the situation and the events following the segregation and
return of Justice K M Joseph’s name as “unfortunate.” Besides Justice Lodha and
Justice Thakur, The Indian Express contacted two former Chief Justices and four
other former judges of the Supreme Court. Speaking on the condition that they
not be named, they were unanimous in their “serious concern” over Chief Justice
Dipak Misra not initiating any conversation with the Centre over the manner in
which it had sat on the collegium’s recommendations for over three months. Former Chief Justice
of the Delhi High Court Justice A P Shah expressed his anxiety over the
Thursday’s developments: “Bit by bit, the primacy of the collegium is being
conceded…I am a bit surprised that the CJI said in open court that there was
nothing wrong in the government returning the file. I doubt if he has consulted
his colleagues in the collegium before making this statement.”
Said Justice Shah:
“Clearly the reason (Justice Joseph’s file was rejected) is his judgment
against the Centre in 2016. The points raised about his so-called seniority are
not relevant and he is the most suitable person for the job. As far as
representation from Kerala is concerned, Justice Kurian Joseph, the only other
Kerala Judge will retire in a few months.” Justice Shah
criticised the CJI for “not taking up relevant issues with the government
appropriately, nor insisting that the MoP be expedited.” He said that despite
the “transgression demonstrated by the Executive, the Chief Justice is not even
calling a meeting and is largely responsible for allowing the transgression.”
http://indianexpress.com/article/india/govt-has-struck-at-the-very-heart-of-judicial-freedom-former-cji-rm-lodha-5153513/
CJI Dipak Misra's
conduct as Chief Justice of India, whether his assertion of power as
"Master of the Rolls" or fearfulness shown in the face of Government
interference, has been far more damaging to the institution than any other
threat the SC has faced in its history. It seems like a
headline from The Onion - three-judge bench of the Supreme
Court holds that three-judge bench judgment overruling of three-judge
bench judgment stands overruled. But that is precisely what happened (in some
ways) when the Supreme Court passed its order on 21 February in State of
Haryana versus GD Goenka Tourism Corporation Limited. How did this come to
pass?
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