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Journalism of Courage
MUMBAI, Jan 11: Union Urban Development Minister Ram Jethmalani today ruminated that the Indian judiciary has not lived upto its expectations. He stated that the founding fathers of the Constitution had placed a lot of trust in the wisdom of the judiciary. He made these statements while releasing a book titled `Judging The Judges’ at K C Law college in South Mumbai this evening. The book, edited by distinguished Supreme Court lawyer Bishwajit Bhattacharyya and civil servant K Mahesh, is a compilation of articles on the role of the Indian judiciary, written by various knowledgeable individuals including judges, jurists, lawyers, journalists, diplomats and academicians.
An eminent jurist himself, Jethmalani has also contributed the beginning chapter of the book. He regrets that in the recent years there has been widely reported allegations of judicial misconduct and a disconcerting compromise of integrity. At today’s function, he was hopeful that the book would generate a national debate on the issue, whichin turn would lead to setting up of a National Judicial Commission. The Minister described this book to be the first of its kind on assessing the role of the judiciary in general and Supreme Court in particular.
Bhattacharyya told The Indian Express later the idea for the book took birth two years ago at a seminar in Delhi on the same topic. And then Mahesh, his former law student, submitted a manuscript of collections of articles of various legal luminaries.
The lawyer, who has put in 12 years in the legal practice, affirmed that there is no book dwelling on the subject of the Indian judiciary. “ This is the first time that such a study has been conducted, in fact, there is no machinery in the country which assesses the performance of the judiciary.
He adds “I am not in favour of brow-beating the judiciary. The judiciary has to evolve some in-house mechanism in order to improve. The idea of the book is to study what direction the judiciary is taking.”
