P M Ravindran
2/18, 'Aathira',
Sivapuri, Kalpathy-678003
Tele: 0491-2576042; E-mail: pmravindran@gmail.com
 |
File:Comp/akp-sk-scorder-ic appt-170912 17 Sep 2012
Mr A K Patnaik and Mr Swatanter Kumar, Judges
Supreme Court, New Delhi
JUDGES SUBVERTING THE LAW: ORDER IN WRIT PETITION (CIVIL)
210/2012
'Judicial system has not been able to meet even the modest expectations of
the society. Its delays and costs are
frustrating, its processes slow and uncertain.
People are pushed to seek recourse to extra-legal methods for
relief. Trial system both on the civil
and criminal side has utterly broken down.' And, 'Thus we have arrived at a
situation in the judicial administration where courts are deemed to exist for
judges and lawyers and not for the public seeking justice'.
-
Report of the
National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution(NCRWC)
Not that I had to wait till your order in the above WP to
realise the truism of the above observation. In fact even the Report of the NCRWC
is a clear example of the judiciary arrogating to itself, or atleast wanting to
arrogate to itself, all the functions of the government. And this is what two
non-judicial members have placed on record in the Notes to the Report.
Dr Subash Kashyap has written about the report itself: 'While
no comments are being made on what went wrong in the procedure, priorities and
perspective, it may be put on record that several of the recommendations now
forming part of the report go directly counter to the clear decisions of the
Commission on which the unanimously adopted draft report of the Drafting and
Editorial Committee was based'.
And Ms Sumitra G. Kulkarni, the only woman member in the
judiciary-headed, judiciary-heavy Commission had driven-in the last nails,
thus:
1. I believe in a Unified and truly Secular India. However, the Commission debates seemed often
to reduce the Constitution to being a platform for divisiveness and not
unification.
2. The Commission did not initiate or promote sincere
debate in the public with regards to the issues that it was contemplating. The efforts was more to "evade and
defer" instead of to "identify issues, table them for debate and to
deal with them".
But first lesson that this frog learnt after it got out
of the well that was the Indian Army, was that the judge-advocate nexus would
beat the much bandied politician-bureaucrat-underworld nexus hollow. So began
the study and analysis of which was the worst organ under the Indian Constitution.
The gist of my analysis is given below.
Of the three organs of the Constitution, the political
organ is the best. Of all the people
constituting the three organs, the law maker, politician, is the only one who
atleast once in a few years actually comes to the people and presents a balance
sheet to him. It is for the people to evaluate their candidate objectively and
choose the right one. However, even after being elected, the fact remains that
NO politician can do any wrong without the active support of a bureaucrat. Then
there is the media always on the prowl looking for news to slander the
politicians. And ultimately the politician can always be hauled up before a
court by any citizen.
The bureaucrat, the behind the scene operator is actually
the real power broker. By twisting facts and laws he can actually make the
politician a puppet. But officially atleast he is supervised by the politician,
the media and also the courts!
Coming to the courts, once a judge, the person enjoys a
lot of unmerited immunity. In the case of higher judiciary it goes to the
preposterous extent of absolute immunity! I need not highlight this further as
the media is so full of reports about the crimes committed by judges
(Dinakaran, Soumitra Sen etc) and the existing system looking helplessly on!
The provision of impeachment is a fraud. It is as good as promising free
medical aid if the patient can be transported to the moon! Nowhere is the
truism in the saying 'power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely' more
evident than in our judiciary.
Now coming to your order specifically. The allegation
that non-judicially trained citizens are not competent to sit in judgement is one
of the biggest frauds that can be imagined. Forget about non-judicial citizens
performing the duties of executive magistrates and district magistrates, the
question needs to be asked what is the message that the judiciary itself has
been sending out about its own competence to dispense justice? Where is the RTI
case of judges‘ assets involving the former Chief Justice of India, K G
Balakrishnan? And where was the justice in the apex court’s decision in the
simple case of the date of birth of the Nation’s Chief of Army Staff? To cut it
short, let me place it on record that my own experiences with the judiciary and
quasi-judicial organisations like the consumer ‘courts‘, human rights
commission, ombudsmen and the information commissions - being shaped into a
book titled ‘Courts of Injustice‘- would be more voluminous than the
Mahabharatha. And yes, all these organisations have failed miserably not only
because they are mostly headed by former judges but also because they have been
emulating the judiciary as much as they can. If the judiciary alone has not
been able to identify thaareeq pe
thaareeq as the hallmark of our judiciary and the most blatant way of
subversion of justice and has not done anything about it, is there anything
more needed to condemn the judicially trained minds of our country in the
harshest terms possible?
Without going into details let me place it on record that
this order is a very good example of the warped judicial mind and warrants the
law-makers to amend the constitutional provisions that gives the judiciary a
pre-eminent place in the scheme of administration of justice. Not only will the
provisions of the Constitution regarding contempt of court have to be amended
but laws will also have to be amended to restrict its application to cases of
disobedience of orders of courts only. Similarly, impeachment provisions will
have to be dumped to make way for more practical ways to exemplarily punish
judges who act arbitrarily, whimsically and corruptly. And most importantly,
there is a need to enact a Contempt of Citizen (Prevention of) Act and ensuring
that even judges who summon litigants and do not proceed with the case are made
liable to being prosecuted. And here what the Parliamentary Standing Committee
on the Ministry of Law and Justice, headed by Rajya Sabha member E.M.S
Natchiappan stated has to be borne in mind: 'Judges appointing judges is bad
enough in itself; judges judging judges is worse.' And doesn’t that also
nail the lie about the need to have judicially trained persons to sit in
judgement over every judicial and quasi judical cases?
Before concluding, I would like you to exercise your
judicial minds and understand that the task of an information commissioner is
simpler than that of a munsif and Sections 13(5)(a) and (b) and 16(5)(a) and
(b) of the RTI Act granting them the status, pay and perks of (Chief) Election
Commissioners and Chief Secretaries is questionable extravagance and violates
the principle of equal pay for equal work. Now, prove me wrong if I believe,
and propagate my belief, that these sections will never be abrogated by the
judges who want these plum icings on the cake to remain as they make a grab for
it!
Yours truly,
(P M Ravindran)
Advance copy to: supremecourt@nic.in
Circulated to: media, bloggers and
activists
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