Citizen146;s judge

Zero tolerance for judicial corruption. That was the goal that the Chief Justice of India Y.K. Sabharwal set for the country at the conference of chief justices and chief ministers, held recently in New Delhi. If the country were to adopt this ideal, what are the measures it needs to undertake in order to achieve it? We believe that the new proposal 8212; as reported by this newspaper on its front page today 8212; to have judges declare their assets, as envisaged in the National Judicial Commission Bill, could prove a seminal reform. It would go some way in achieving that goal of zero tolerance for judicial corruption.

What such a step would do is to let daylight into an institution not fully accountable to the public. Granting immunity to judges from public scrutiny is a valuable principle, since it protects judicial decision-making from motivated attack. But it does not serve the people, or the judiciary as an institution, when that immunity gets translates into inaction. The judiciary, by and large, has been one of the few instititions of the country that has conducted itself with integrity. We have had towering figures of unimpeachable credentials presiding over our benches. Their legacy needs to be protected from the dishonour that a few men and women within their ranks have brought their high office. Yet, in all these 56 years of the Republic, few wrong-doers have faced punishment or the ignominy of public exposure, even when credible evidence of misdemeanour has surfaced.

It is for that very reason that when the National Judicial Commission Bill is introduced in Parliament very shortly, it should be given the complete attention of not just the country8217;s law-makers, but its citizens. Such a Commission has the potential to bring the necessary correctives into the system, without undermining the authority of the judiciary and the respect that is fully due to it. It is after all judges themselves who have been at the forefront of judicial reform. It was a former chief justice of India who had headed the Constitution Review Commission, which had suggested judicial misbehaviour be more clearly delineated in the Constitution. The high seriousness that the issue demands arises from the recognition that without a judiciary, there can be no rule of law; and without assured integrity, there can be no credible judiciary.