Taking on critics of the judiciary, within and outside, Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra Wednesday said “to criticise, attack and destroy a system is quite easy” but “what is difficult and challenging is to transform it into a performing one”. “For this, one has to transcend one’s personal ambitions and grievances. Rather constructive steps need to be taken with a positive mindset of reform, no matter howsoever small,” the CJI told a gathering after unfurling the Tricolour at the Supreme Court. He rued the fact that some lawyers sometimes advance arguments “for some other reason”. Though judges listen to them, the CJI said, “everyone should remember it’s essential that one should work hard in silence and utmost sincerity and his words shall make the noise”. Incidentally, Justice Ranjan Gogoi, the most senior judge after the CJI, while delivering the Third Ramnath Goenka Memorial Lecture on ‘The Vision of Justice’ in New Delhi on July 12, had said noisy judges and independent journalists are democracy’s first line of defence and a revolution, not mere reform, is needed to keep the institution of the judiciary responsive to the changes in society. CJI Misra said “concrete reforms must be undertaken with rationality, maturity, responsibility and composure” and that “it is necessary to be productive instead of being counter-productive”. There may be some elements, he said, who may endeavour to weaken the institution. “But we refuse, you and I all together, to succumb to them. We have to serve the lady of justice, the queen of justice. She holds the scales of justice, symbolising that the act of delivering and imparting justice has to be balanced as far as possible and that is the basic essence of justice. Anyone who tries to create any kind of dent in that balance is hurting the queen of justice. And when the queen of justice sheds tears, possibly all of us will shed tears,” he said. Speaking before him, Supreme Court Bar Association president Vikas Singh said he was disturbed by reports on comments made during hearings and urged both the bench and lawyers to refrain from making unnecessary oral observations. He said though the judiciary has always ensured that the separation of powers remains intact, “our experience is that in the day-to-day functioning of the court, this line is getting a little blurred”. Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who spoke on the occasion, flagged the issue of frivolous PILs. PILs were “respected” and “accepted”, Prasad said, adding that the “judiciary must intervene to set things right” where there is “deprivation of the rights of the poor, the marginalised, abuse of power for nepotism, personal purposes, or downright corruption by executive heads, political or bureaucratic”. “While I notice with satisfaction that the Supreme Court is imposing a lot of cost on fly-by-night PILs, there is need to have some kind of audit, some kind of understanding that the larger perspective of the PIL is not lost,” he said. Calling for maintaining the delicate balance of powers among the various arms of the state, Prasad said the “founding fathers always wanted governance must be left to those elected by the people to govern India”.
