Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Internal rift in our judiciary?' that was published in Newsband

Internal rift in our judiciary?

Is there an internal rift in our judiciary? The press conference was held by four senior judges of the Supreme Court who revolted against the Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra. The question is whether it could have been handled internally rather than be dragged into the open like this.

The grievances of Justices J. Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B. Lokur and Kurian Joseph — the seniormost judges after the CJI — were that Justice Misra is misusing his administrative powers to assign cases “selectively”, disregarding conventions on allocation of judicial work. They allege that Justice Misra is departing so far from set conventions that it would have “unpleasant and undesirable consequences”, ultimately casting a doubt on the integrity of the institution itself.

The letter related to this was written by the four judges to the Chief Justice, which became available to the media, and the press conference was held. According to them, Judicial work is primarily allocated based on a roster, and individual cases are allotted to Benches based on the category under which they fall. Once the roster is fixed, the CJI should ordinarily see that it is duly followed.

The government has professed that it will stay steadfastly away from the internal conflict in the judiciary. Now the Chief Justice must convene a meeting of the full court and give them a patient and careful hearing in spite of the disapproval of the form of their protest. May be their options of settling their differences internally were exhausted.

Will this incident be regarded by posterity as an aberration rather than a precedent? Is there an unholy politician-judge nexus? How far the open expression by four senior judges against the CJI would help preserve democracy and independence of judiciary?

The four judges, by bringing their disgruntlements into public domain, have given a handle to the unscrupulous politicians and cantankerous lawyers, some of whom have been chastised in public court, to indulge in calumny and baseless accusations against individual judges. It was so depressing to hear them ranting in the media and giving vent to their personal agenda.

There are around 55000 cases in arrears. Instead of dealing with the pendency, it is sad that honourable judges are having an in-figting about who is getting which case. All the judges of the Court should assemble and devise a plan to clear the arrears and ensure that there is no recurrence of the sorry state of affairs.

The question is why was CJI not able to foresee this issue and take appropriate action at the right time? The four senior judges were indeed prompted by a statesman-like spirit when they brought to the attention of the whole nation the important issue of 'selective' assignment of cases to the Benches of 'their preferences'. If these judges had adhered to the formalities and compromised with unethical exercise of power, that would have only further eroded the credibility of our judicial system. The public are entitled to know who were 'plotting to influence the SC'.