HUNTING THE HUNTER WHO IS TO JUDGE THE JUDIACIARY!

 Firoz.T.Totanawala

The Bangalore Metro Reporter

15th September 2011 issue-

                          HUNTING THE HUNTER

                  WHO IS TO JUDGE THE JUDIACIARY!

In a matter of one month, the Chief Justice of Sikkim and West Bengal High Courts have tendered their resignations facing ‘impeachment’ from the parliament.

In fact, Soumitra Sen of West Bengal has created history becoming the first judge to be impeached by the Rajya Sabha. He escaped further humiliation of removal by resigning from the post just four days before the impeachment motion came up in the Loksabha. Similarly, P. D. Dinakaran escaped humiliation by resigning before the motion came up in the Rajya Sabha. After resigning, Dinakaran smartly tried to withdraw the resignation after the probe committee was dissolved subsequent to his resignation, but in vain.

The above two episodes are simply the tip of the iceberg. Former Chief Justice of India and presently the chairman of the NHRC, K. G. Balakrishnan, is also facing corruption charges. One can list out many such instances suffice to say that the judiciary is no more a “Temple of Justice” as conceived. But there is nothing one can do to fight corruption in judiciary.

Our constitution makers never dreamt of corruption seeping into judiciary. So, they kept it on a high pedestal and prevented any criticism of judiciary by treating it as ‘Contempt of Court’. Shanthi Bushan, a former Law Minister and a senior counsel in the Supreme Court himself is facing contempt of court proceedings for making a statement that sixteen former CJIs in the recent past had given ‘suspicious’ judgements! He had filed an affidavit by giving the names of the CJIs in a sealed cover to the Supreme Court and nobody to this day knows the names of the CJIs who have given suspicious judgements.

The judges of the High Court and Supreme Court know well that no action can be initiated even if they do illegal things due to the protection of the constitution. Even the Supreme Court can not remove a judge of the High Court, let alone the Supreme Court judge, even if the charges of corruption, nepotism, favouritism etc. are proved! These judges can only be removed through an impeachment motion in the parliament and that too by three fourth majority. Except the rarest of rare case of Soumitra Sen, the parliament has not impeached a single judge. In fact, now, with the resignation of Soumitra Sen, the impeachment motion in the Loksabha too becomes infraction!

Of course, the judges are humans and tend to commit mistakes. But, when they commit blunders intentionally under pressure or inducements, it is clearly a slap on the integrity of the judiciary. For example, the Punjab High Court judge is alleged to have upheld the acquisition of large extent of lands by the owner of Resort meant for ‘rich’, after he was given membership and share. There is another judge who is accused of taking 20 lakhs in a case of PF scam and the judge is now given an anticipatory bail.

Arguably, nobody can expose the misdeeds of the judiciary as the contempt weapon stands as a strong and unbreakable wall. The Mysore Resort episode is a shining example for this great barrier. Many newspapers exposed the Mysore Resort scam where in few judges were charged with undesirable activities. Most of the newspapers were summoned to the High Court after slapping contempt notices and some editors have apologised and the matter is in the Supreme Court for the last three years.

Why go far? The advocates of Karnataka High Court protested the Chief Justice P. D. Dinakaran’s posting and held a series of protests charging him with corruption and nepotism. The Supreme Court could not do much except ‘requesting’ Dinakaran to go on a long leave. Dinakaran applied long leave and then suddenly cancelled it and assumed the duty. The Supreme Court later ‘requested’ him not to sit on the Bench and for almost six months, Dinakarana worked as a Non-working CJ limiting himself to administration. Even here, there were allegations of his manipulation in allocation of works to judges. Finally, he was shifted to Sikkim High Court amidst the stiff opposition from the Bar. The rest is history.

Apparently, many sitting judges of the High Court have obtained big sites in the Karnataka Judicial Department Employees Housing Society, even though they are ineligible  for the simple reason that they are not the employees of the Judicial Department. Even some Supreme Court judges have got the sites in this layout. Most importantly, the Housing Society itself is the epicenter of scams including forgery and fabrication by the office bearers. But no action is contemplated against the judges for the last several years.

The question now is - who will judge the judiciary? One wonders whether one can get the answer as long as the sword of contempt hangs over one’s head. And that is all.