Sitting in judgement

There have been far too many moments in recent months when public faith in the credibility of the judiciary has hovered around the low water...

There have been far too many moments in recent months when public faith in the credibility of the judiciary has hovered around the low watermark. A flurry of high-profile cases has underlined that the procedures of appointing and disciplining judges need to be urgently recast. There was the very public shame of Shameet Mukerjee, poised to be confirmed as a judge of the Delhi High Court but for the evidence bared against him by the CBI. Earlier, there was Arun Madan of the Rajasthan High Court. He had to go 8212; note, after a protracted media campaign 8212; following his indictment by a peer-group committee for soliciting a woman doctor in exchange for a judicial favour. Significantly, Madan was appointed to the Delhi High Court in 1993 despite the fact that he had been censured by the Supreme Court Bar Association for bringing disrepute to the profession. Then there was the swirl of allegations against judges of the Karnataka High Court in the Mysore scandal. To be sure, the law ministry8217;s move to bring forth a Constitution Amendment Bill that reworks the mechanism for enforcing judicial accountability is impeccably timed.

But it is bound to be controversial. For one, it provides that a National Judicial Commission consisting of representatives from the executive as well as the judiciary will select judges for appointment. This will take away the 8216;primacy8217; acquired by the judiciary through a 1993 Supreme Court judgement and break through the completely opaque secrecy that the process has so assiduously cultivated. But more than that, in a departure from the recommendations of the Constitution Review Commission, the proposed legislation provides that the executive role will not be confined to appointments alone 8212; the law minister and an eminent person chosen by the prime minister will also be part of the machinery of disciplining judges. Alarm bells will surely clang in the days to come about the implications of this move. What about the independence of the judiciary, they will ask.

It is true that the proposal to give the executive a say in the process of disciplining judges may be potentially mined with danger. But the question that needs to be asked is this: Was there an alternative? Given that the judges have repeatedly proved that the judiciary is unequal to the task of reining in the errant in its ranks and bringing them to account, given that it has shown itself to succumb to obfuscation and the cover-up, it is time to give the law ministry8217;s proposal a try. Perhaps the enforcement of judicial accountability is too important to be left completely to the judges.