Amlendu Bhushan Khan / New Delhi : How did a press conference by four senior judges of the Supreme Court help resolve their discontent against the Chief Justice of India, the former Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur asked.
“This should have been sorted out within the institution instead of bringing them out in public,” he said
“It does not help anybody, particularly the institution if someone was to bring it out in the open. I know each one of these people [judges]. I only hope things are sorted out properly. Roster issues are also matters which can be sorted out,” he said.
The former Chief Justice said the top court was capable of resolving the issue. “People come with complex problems, issues and challenges to be sorted by the Supreme Court. I am sure Supreme Court has enough wisdom and capacity to sort out these issues also,” he said,
However, he was not in favour of the four senior judges, one of whom is in line to become the next Chief Justice of India, discussing the issue in public.
“How did the press conference really help resolve the roster issue? This will bring in further controversy and public speculation,” he said.
Another former Supreme Court judge, Justice K.T. Thomas, said it “should not become a precedent.”
“Sitting Supreme Court judges interacting with the media especially concerning matters relating to administrative, business and judgment side of the top court have never happened before,” Justice Thomas said.
Justice Thomas said, “The CJI has not reacted to the development and it is also not known whether the four collegium judges had taken the other judges into confidence.”
“The collegium has been formed to facilitate the smooth functioning of the top court and each one of the judges in the Supreme Court is equal in status. Whether the four judges have discussed the issue with other judges to sort out the issue is not known,” he said.
‘No dent to image’
“The image of the institution will not suffer from today’s event. The Supreme Court is far above all these,” he added.
Former Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan said this was an “unfortunate occasion which could have been avoided.”
“The image of the institution has suffered,” Justice Balakrishnan remarked.
Senior lawyer Rebecca John said it must have been the last resort available to the four judges. “I too wish it hadn’t come to this. I wish they could have set their house in order by talking to each other and taking correctional measures. I wish there was no press conference,” the senior lawyer said.
She added, “But sometimes you need to come out, when nothing else works. A democracy functions in open spaces, not opaque doors. And the problem facing the judiciary today is very very serious. It’s about institutional integrity. Recognise it.”
Rebelled Supreme Court judges brief profiles
Here’s a profile of the four senior Supreme Court judges who held a press conference on Friday to say not all was well in the country’s highest court.
Justice Jasti Chelameswar
Justice Chelameswar was elevated to the Supreme Court on October 10, 2011, and is currently number 2 in the judges’ hierarchy.
He was chief justice of Gauhati High Court between May 2007and March 2010, and was later transferred to Kerala High Court as chief justice. He is one of the few judges who have favoured the idea of National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC), which seeks to replace the existing Collegium system for appointing judges.
Some of his significant judgements include the invalidation of Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, and holding as part of the three-judge Bench that no Indian can be denied government subsidies and other services for want of an Aadhaar number.
Justice Chelameswar is scheduled to retire in June this year.
Justice Ranjan Gogoi
Elevated to the Supreme Court as a Judge on April 23, 2012, Justice Ranjan Gogoi is the next in line to be Chief Justice of India (CJI).
He was briefly in the news for recusing himself from hearing the plea filed by a lawyers’ group against the proposed elevation of Justice JS Khehar as CJI in December 2016.
But he can also be credited with bringing forth the banality of most of the cases that land up at the apex court’s door, which ideally shouldn’t have.
Gogoi would reportedly u lawyers: “Does this case fall in the 93 per cent or in the 7 per cent?” Flummoxed, a bunch of lawyers decided to find out the secret behind this seemingly strange query. On research, they found that of the 884 judgments between January 1 and December 31, 2014, just 64 cases (or 7 per cent) pertained to any meaningful constitutional issues.
The finding brought forth what is bogging down the already overworked higher judiciary—a pile of insubstantial cases.
Gogoi served as Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court before moving to the Supreme Court.
Justice Madan B Lokur
Appointed as Judge of the Supreme Court on June 4, 2012, Justice Madan B. Lokur has vast experience in civil, criminal, constitutional, revenue and service laws.
He practised in the Supreme Court and Delhi High Court before qualifying as as an Advocate-on-Record in the Supreme Court in 1981.
He has served as Additional Solicitor General of India between July 1998 and February 1999— the year he was appointed an Additional Judge of Delhi High Court and appointed its Permanent Judge five months later.
He functioned as Acting Chief Justice of Delhi High Court from February 2010 to May 2010 and as Chief Justice of Gauhati High Court from June 2010 to November 2011. He was Chief Justice of Andhra Pradesh High Court from November 2011 to June 2012.
He took great interest in judicial reforms, computerisation of courts, judicial education, legal aid and services, juvenile justice and ADR.
He was appointed as One-Man Committee to suggest improvements in the working of the homes and organisations under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection and Children) Act, 2000 and the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Rules, 2007.
He is due to retire in December-end this year.
Justice Kurian Joseph
Elevated as a judge to the Supreme Court of India on March 8, 2013, Justice Kurian Joseph is a proponent of judiciary playing a pro-active role to meet people’s expectations and aspirations.
He was part of the bench comprising Justice R.M. Lodha, Justice Lokur and himself that—while hearing the coal block allocation case—vowed to free the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) from any political and bureaucratic interference.
He was also member of the Supreme Court Bench that overruled the admissibility of electronic evidence in 2014.
The judgement, which he wrote, observed that “electronic records are more susceptible to tampering, alteration, transposition, excision, and without proper safeguards, the whole trial based on proof of electronic records can lead to a travesty of justice”, and that the position taken by the court in its 2005 Parliament attack case verdict was legally incorrect.
On August 22 last year, Justice Joseph gave a verdict against the practice of triple talaq or instant divorce practised by some sects of Muslims, and held that the practice of triple talaq is not integral to the religion or personal laws of that community.
He previously served twice as Acting Chief Justice of the Kerala High Court and was appointed as Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh High Court in February 2010.
He is due to retire on November 30 this year.
