P M Ravindran

2/18, 'Aathira', Sivapuri, Kalpathy-678003

Tele: 0491-2576042; E-mail: raviforjustice@gmail.com

File:Pers/jud-cji jsk-reforms-120317
12 Mar 2017

Mr J S Kehar,

Further to my letter, Pers/jud-cji jsk-reforms-310117 dated 31 Jan 2017, ( I

hope you got to read it!)

When I wrote to you about the need for a National Judicial Accountability
Commission, which can try complaints against the omissions and
commissions of judges as per ordinary laws applicable to ordinary
citizens, I did not expect you to put it in practice begining with a high
court judge, Karnan! NJAC be damned, I know that our apex court has the
power to make laws to fill in the voids where they exist. Take it further,
why should the taxpayers money be wasted on such an elaborate system
of electing representatives to law making bodies who have no
qualifications whatsoever required for such an important subject (just to
refresh your memory, the Kerala High Court has decided that journalists
who can report court proceeding should be qualified in law! Well, a
petition to remove the bar on media in the courts of kerala is pending in
the apex court, as has been reported by the media! While on the rights of
the media to report whatever they feel like reporting, I must compliment
the judges of the apex court who have refused to entertain a petition
seeking prosecution of some journalists who had allegedly taken money to
write favourably for the accused firm in the infamous VVIP hepter scam!)

Having said that, judge Karnans case also is seen as sending only the
wrong signals! You may ask how? Well, the begining of it all happens to be
his allegations against some of his colleagues in the Chennai High Court,
isnt it? Have those allegations been investigated formally and finally
disposed of? While the general nature of the allegations have been
reported by the media there have been no such reports about any
investigations done or any of the allegations being proved right or wrong.
So the contempt proceedings and the present warrant for arrest are all
aptly summed up by the proverb putting the cart before the horse, isnt
it?

I shall conclude with a few relevant quotes:

Already citizens are frustrated with the justice delivery system and only
less than 10% of the litigants who have disputes are approaching the
court," Justice Kirubakaran observed. -Rise in contempt of court cases
irks Madras high court, A Subramani, TNN | Feb 24, 2013, 03.45 AM IST
available at http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Rise-in-in-contempt-
of-court-cases-irks-Madras-high-court/articleshow/18651932.cms?
intenttarget=no.

An extra constitutional, unannounced and invisible emergency is being

imposed through our courts and civil society has to be alert to this and
react effectively.- Adv Kaleeswaram Raj, Vidhi prathilomakaram thanne,
Mathrubhumi of 10 Nov 2011.

The only obstacle in the way of drastic civil service reform like the
one pursued by the present government at the Centre is the judiciary
that overturns or stays every administrative action against an erring
senior officer. Courts would earn the admiration of a harassed public if
they stopped interfering in disciplinary matters once they are satisfied
that prescribed procedures had been followed in a case coming up before
them and there is no malice writ large on a decision. Judicial
overstepping, while correcting unjust action against a few honest civil
servants, unwittingly promotes the cause of many unscrupulous elements.
The track record of administrative tribunals in the country is a matter of
great concern to those looking for a balanced and objective bureaucracy.
There is need here for an immediate corrective by the Union Law
Ministry.- R.K. Raghavan ( former CBI Director), Dealing with the
deadwood, JANUARY 23, 2017 00:15 IST at
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/Dealing-with-the-
deadwood/article17078468.ece?homepage=true

Despite issuing interim orders as early as in 2013 making the securing of

the Aadhaar card optional, the court has failed to adequately enforce its
directions seemingly every day the government and its various
agencies appear to extend the use of the unique ID linking it with the
provision of a number of essential services. The court can be excused for
failing to haul up the government for contempt of its orders were it to
expedite its hearing of the basic challenge to the UID scheme. But the
Constitution Bench established to determine whether Indias citizens have
a fundamental right to privacy, which the Aadhaar policy quite clearly
appears to contravene, is yet to hear concrete arguments on the issue.-
2016: The Supreme Courts report card, Suhrith Parthasarthy (Advocate
at the Madras High Court) DECEMBER 31, 2016 00:15 IST at
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/2016-The-Supreme-Court
%E2%80%99s-report-card/article16965545.ece

Way back in 2002, in an article Democracy?East Is East And West Is

West! (available at https://www.scribd.com/document/341637658/East-is-
East-and-West-is-West-030602 ) I myself had written:

Rule of Law not Rule of Judges. The mainstay of any civilized society,
leave alone a democracy, is the rule of the law. For any law to be effective
it should, first of all, be simple, clear and unambiguous. The affected
people should understand it and imbibe it in letter and spirit. The need to
go to courts to get interpretations for each and every clause certainly
doesnt speak well of the competence of our legislators. And worse, when
the judiciary interprets the same law to mean different, sometimes even
contradictory, things under different contexts, the public can only get
confused and confounded, as they are now. In this context it would be
worth recalling that confusion had prevailed even in recognising the
preamble of our Constitution as an integral part of it! In 1961, the
Supreme Court had observed that the preamble is not part of the
Constitution, but in 1973, it held that the preamble of the Constitution
was part of the Constitution and the observations to the contrary in
Berubari Union case were not correct! Our present Union Minister for
Disinvestment, Mr Arun Shourie, has done yeomen service in compiling a
number of intriguing cases in a book titled Courts and their judgements.
At the function held to release the book he also made a tongue-in-cheek
suggestion: that there should be a group of scholars reviewing all
sensitive rulings of the higher courts so that the judges were also careful
that their judgements were subjects to scrutiny! And this is what Ms
Arundhati Roy, Booker-prize winner, has said: the process of the trial and
all that it entails, is as much, if not more of a punishment than the
sentence itself.

Yours sincerely,

Sri J S Kehar
CJI, Supreme Court of India
New Delhi