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Journalism of Courage
Much as the judiciary is notoriously slow, nobody has ever dared to ask the judges of superior courts to give an account of the time they take to hear cases, the number of adjournments they grant and the time they take to deliver judgments after conclusion of hearings.
The grand old man of the Indian bar, Fali S Nariman, did precisely that on July 23 when he introduced two Bills in the Rajya Sabha containing radical proposals to reform the judiciary.
Treading the tricky path between maintaining judicial independence and introducing ‘‘greater transparency,’’ Nariman proposed in one Bill the creation of authorities at various levels run by judges themselves to collect ‘‘judicial statistics’’ and bring out annual reports providing ‘‘a commentary on the trends revealed by the statistics.’’
The Judicial Statistics Bill, 2004 proposes such authorities at the national, state and district levels headed by the Chief Justice of India, chief justice of the high court concerned and district judge concerned, respectively. In his statement of objects and reasons (SOR), Nariman said that the proposed publication of judicial statistics would be in keeping with the practice in advanced countries such as the US and UK.
The availability of judicial statistics would help the general public and other stake holders to ‘‘better assess’’ the performance of courts and tribunals and suggest remedies for their backlog. ‘‘It will go a long way towards demystifying the law and the administration of justice,’’ he added.
In the other Bill introduced by him on the same day, Nariman suggested an amendment to the Constitution in order to raise the retirement age of high court judges from 62 to 65, which will be the same as that of their Supreme Court counterparts.
Drawing strength from the recommendations of the Constitution Review Commission and Law Commission, Nariman explained in the SOR to the second Bill that the proposed parity in the retirement age would check the ‘‘tendency on the part of judges of high courts to seek elevation as quickly as possible to the highest court so as to secure a longer tenure.’’
As they are what are known as private member’s Bills, Nariman’s suggestions are unlikely to be enacted unless the Government adopts them.
The statistics Bill is particularly sensitive as evident from the objection raised by the Delhi High Court when it was asked a couple of years ago by the Government in the context of a parliamentary question for information on the time taken to delivery judgments after conclusion of hearings. TheHighCourt declined to give the information on the ground that it would compromise judicial independence.
