Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'The country must know the truth' that was published in Newsband

The country must know the truth

The Supreme Court appointed its former judge, Justice A.K. Patnaik to probe whether a conspiracy is afoot against the Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi. He is tasked to unearth whether the CJI is the target of a larger intrigue hatched by a powerful lobby of fixers, disgruntled apex court employees and corporate figures to compromise the highest judiciary itself.

The enquiry would primarily focus on material and affidavits provided by lawyer Utsav Singh Bains. Justice Patnaik would test Mr. Bains' claim that He was offered up to Rs. 1.5 crore to file a false case against the CJI.

"This country must know the truth. The Supreme Court cannot be run by money power or political power. When somebody tries to clean up the system, he is killed or maligned. This will stop," Justice Mishra said. “What do the powerful of this country think? That they can run this court?” Justice Mishra's voice boomed at one stage across the thickly-packed but silent courtroom.

Focus should be on truth and solution not on debate or arguments. Magnifying the issue turns to be more complex. Fair and rational outcome is expected from the ex-judge. 1. The malaise is deep rooted and structural. Justices come and go, but the malaise remains. 2. Why did the court wake up only after CJI was named? Why Ambani judgement did not evoke such an interest? 3. This is true of entire judicial system. One man commission would not do. 4. Courts appear to be overawed by litigants' ingenuity. Didn't 'national security' force them to accept 'closed' information and 'redacted audit reports' as gospel truths? 5. One takeaway is that the Central investigative agencies and police are no more dependable.Time we wake up.

Many allegations are there in the public and it is like any one can make allegations. Stringent actions shall be taken against these people if the allegations are proved incorrect. Due to this huge number of cases, real criminals are hiding back. Why this is happening? It is because there are so many judges in judiciary who are in one way or other connected to politicians or big-wigs for their personal happiness.  So the public has lost faith to the max extent on the integrity of judges and their delayed judgments in many cases.  When such is the situation in Indian Judiciary, any foul cry will not be accepted by the public as honesty has already laid to rest and has become a past one in judiciary.   

In this case, what happened?  A complaint against the CJI. The CJI   sets up a bench in which he rubbishes the allegations and then recuses himself. Even more peculiar that a senior cabinet minister, the AG, the BCI and others promptly support one side without even any preliminary enquiry into the complaint against the CJI, nor hearing the complainant. Then Mr Bains suddenly appearing out of the woodwork with astounding allegations. Will the truth ever come out? The suspense is increasing. The nation wants to know.