New Delhi: A Parliamentary Committee has said that there are abysmally fewer members from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes on the bar in the higher courts and that the judiciary is “neither sympathetic nor unbiased to the cause of Backward Classes”.
There are only 15 SC and five ST judges among the 481 High Court judges in the country as on May 1, 1998 and there was no judge from this particular group in the Supreme Court (before the appointment of Justice K.G. Balakrishnan in July this year), says the Committee on the Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in its second report (1999-2000).
“Judges take oath that they (will) uphold the Constitution and laws. But the supreme Court and a few high courts by claiming power over the Constitution practise untouchability and are disobeying the Constitution with regard to Art. 16 (4) and Art. 16 (4A)”, says the 38-page report, bristling throughout with a strident tone and tenor.
(Hindu, Oct.2, 2000)
