Every human being is product of a society in which he is born and brought up and so is the case with indian judges. Do they perform marriage, rituals and other essential expressions of life outside their caste and customs, barring a few? How can we expect that they will behave completely differently from ordinary citizens? A person who has not suffered poverty and hunger, how care he be expected to feel the pain of the have-nots? He is influenced, unconsciously at least by his likes and dislikes, prejudices and predilections, his entire philosophy of life in the atmosphere of the ongoing social struggles in the country, the resultant bitterness cannot leave the judge without being influenced in his judgment as to the right or wrong of the struggle. Being members of a society, they are bound to be partisan because they share the sentiments and prejudices of their communities. Our judiciary too is manned by such people and hence there must be effective control to keep reminding them of their duties whenever they fall apart. Framers of the Indian Constitution took exceptional care to protect the judiciary more than what was required. It does not mean that the judiciary behaves like an oligarchy. Judges now think that there is no one between them and God during litigation and court proceedings.
The judges are a by-product of our caste-ridden social system. Can a Dalit expect any justice from such judges, in respect of reservation, who are so biased?
NO QUOTA IN JUDICIARY
The Constitution is the mother and the judiciary, executive, legislature are its children, but the judiciary has now defiled its mother by misinterpreting and diiuting it in many ways.
Unfortunately, there is no law to govern the judiciary in this country. In the appointment of judges, no objective procedure can be followed in the present situation to judge the character, capacity and ability of a judge. Sycophancy, nepotism and favouritism are the order of the day. Since plurality of hands like the President, PM, Governor, Ministry of Law are not allowed to play a role in their appointment, appointment is bound to be corrupt and biased. Who has given the power to CJI to appoint judges? Neither the people nor the Constitution of this country have given this power to him. How can they assume and snatch the executive power? Earlier, the executive had a say in the appointment of judges and that was more or less fair because the. executive is answerable to the people. What is the criteria of merit to select a judge? There has been not only no reservation for SC/ST in the appointment of officers and staff of the Supreme Court but framing of codified rules regarding their recruitment has also not been finalised during the last half century. How can the weaker sections of society have any faith in such a court? When the Supreme Court judges are receiving the salaries from the Consolidated Fund of India, it is a condition that the Chief Justice and companion judges of the Supreme Court as well as high courts should also implement reservation in recruitment and promotion of the officers and servants at various levels at the prescribed percentage and the backlog of vacancies in the categories of SC/ST must be filled up by conducting special recruitment drive.
The govt. has been saying that the question of reservation in employment of SC/STs in the establishments of high court has not been discussed in the Chief Justices’ Conference held during the last eight years. The information in this regard was not even supplied by the Supreme Court.
On inquiring about figures of actual representation and percentage of SC/STs in the total number of officers and staff separately for subordinate judicial services, higher judicial services and ministerial service for each state, the Ministry of Law has stated that primarily the subordinate judicial services and higher judicial services are the concern of the respective State Government and its high court. The control of the ministerial service in establishment of the high court is
the exclusive domain of each high court. The information in respect of actual representation of SC/STs in various high courts establishments is as under (see inset on p.5).
Out of 481 high court judges, only 15 SCs and 5 STs were in position as on 1-5-1998. The judges take Cath that they uphold the Constitution. But the Supreme Court and a few high courts are claiming power above the Constitution, practice untouchability and are disobeying the Constitution about Art 16 (4) and 16 (4A).
Recent incidents regarding behaviour of judges have left no doubt that to leave a system like this would spoil whatever democratic values are left. Poor Sumit Mukherjee was jailed because he was not enjoying immunity, and such characters are not a few but must be in plenty. They hear those lawyers who have face value, tacit understanding and of course their relatives. Judges should not be posted in the places where their relatives are practicing law, but examples of Delhi High Court will put to rest all doubts where 12 judges’ relatives are practicing and in Allahabad such judges are 27 in number. Thus, the present setup of the judiciary is neither honest nor accountable.
