Higher Judiciary - Corruption - Reforms?

Replace the current Judicial system with a Super Computer.
Everyday we find contradiction in the views of Judges in the same bench and totallty opposite views in a higher court on the same case. It has become common for the higher court to rubbish the deciion of the lower court. How can be the law in judicial system can be different in different courts or when handled by different judges. 

We can overcome this problem by using Super Computer to arrive at decision based on all facts and data related to the case fed into it. This will help to remove the bias, ambiguity, delay corruption and expenditure in the judicial process.

Sir, thanku for very nice article and thoughts .
     i, ragini narain,PhD scholar is doing research work on "Judicial Accountability in India" ..Would u provide me relevent information , ideas , and thought about this as i could do better with my research Topic.
Thanku Sir 

CORRUPTION IS NOT THE PROBLEM AT ALL. The problem is that the vast majority, who by the way are reasonablly honest, do not discharge their  with sincerity.  It is the lackdiacical attitude.
It is impossible for any  judge  to  read over 20 cases each day before coming to court.  Still all the judges pretend as if they are doing their  duty instead of  telleing the concerned CJI /CJ  that he is  not being fair in alloting  over  100 cases each day.
 
 

CORRUPTION IS NOT THE PROBLEM AT ALL. The problem is that the vast majority, who by the way are reasonablly honest, do not discharge their  with sincerity.  It is the lackdiacical attitude.
It is impossible for any  judge  to  read over 20 cases each day before coming to court.  Still all the judges pretend as if they are doing their  duty instead of  telleing the concerned CJI /CJ  that he is  not being fair in alloting  over  100 cases each day.
 
 

Well your thougths are fine, but going more deep to this problem, as rightly said, educational reforms are required, quality law education, grooming with soft skills such as communication skills and english language are a must. This will provide good standard Judges.
When you say about higher salaries and good infrastructure, bringing in money through raising the Courts fees is important. I always feel the Court fees charged are too less, especially for non pecuniary matters, like injunction suits (which our Courts are mostly burdened with, matrimonial matters, 138 N I Act cases and the like. If the fees are hiked, litigants too will think twice before approaching the Courts and Advocates too cannot provoke them to approach the Courts.
Corruption may be rampant AFTER getting the power, but I find, it must be rampant FOR geting the power. As a result we have high quality Judges as well as poor quality Judges. I have not seen any mediocre Judges. This is one issue which bothers me most.
I feel, like we had earlier the JURY SYSTEM, the members of public must also be invovled to select a candidate for Judicial service. This will give more transperency in terms of his educational, behaviourial and financial status, giving us the Judiciary we crave for.
Vandana Vaidya. Advocate.

The battle of TRUTH goes through THREATS, INDUCEMENTS (MONEY, ASSETS, WOMAN), TRICKS, TRAPS, DELAYS before the final WIN.

SATYAMEV JAYATE ---- TRUTH ALONE TRIUMPHS

The battle of TRUTH goes through THREATS, INDUCEMENTS (MONEY, ASSETS, WOMAN), TRICKS, TRAPS, DELAYS before the final WIN.
    
SATYAMEV JAYATE ---- TRUTH ALONE TRIUMPHS

Hello Mr V Durga Rao,

First of all, the article I shared below is not mine.

It came in The Hindu and is written by Respected Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer (former Judge, Supreme Court.)

Also, as I said earlier, I am not a expert of your subject but I am trying to learn.

SATYAMEV JAYATE ---- TRUTH ALONE TRIUMPHS

SATYAMEV JAYATE ---- TRUTH ALONE TRIUMPHS

Respected balaram sir,
        I am very happy to read your comments from time to time and your contribution to the society through your thought provoking articles. While agreeing on everything you said, I just wanted to dealwith one issue as to how our "Independent Judicial Appointment Mechanism" based on the verdict of our apex court, has failed to yield the desired result. The intention of our apex court earlier while stressing on the independence of judiciary in appointments is to address the issue of political interference. But, now, as I think, our judiciary is slowly loosing its right to independence in judicial appointments. When it comes to appointments, as Dr.Jaitly also opined, what I feel is that it is better to turn the clock back and give the appointing responsibility to executive. Why because, our politicians or the political parties should face elections every five years and with the subjects where intellectuals interfere, the politicians and political parties will be very careful. It is not the case with our judges and we know the cumbersome procedure of a removal of a judge of constitutional court. The issue is very sensitive and needs to be a good balance. There tend to be criticism at the mindless appointments in parliament if the appointments are through executive. But,what happens with the present mechanism is that no one will look at the procedure adopted and rarely mistakes come to light and in the course, there will be irreparable damage to the system. Damage has already been done to a great extent as I feel and the government should discharge its responsibility of acting in true spirit as enshrined in our constitution.
I thank you for provoking me further despite my other commitments. Thank you again and hope I will see many more useful insights from you.

The Hindu

The syndrome of judicial arrears          V.R. Krishna Iyer

Having more competent judges, not more number of judges, is the solution to the persisting problem.  


http://www.hindu.com/2009/12/02/stories/2009120255001000.htm



Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary. 

— Reinhold Niebuhr 


When justice is denied by any society, including a socialist, secular and democratic one as in India, expectations darken into depression. Then that depression turns into dread, dread transforms itself into despair and despair evolves into explosive terrorism. State violence as an instrument to suppress terrorism is futile: after a time the bitterness and revengefulness that is generated will seek to overthrow those very forces that control state power — call it fasc ism, naxalism, Maoism or whatever. This dangerous deterioration of democracy into bedlam terrorism is hastened when access to justice ceases to be a reality and the only alternative is violence. When the rule of the robes proves a mirage, the rule of robbery gets support and sanction. 

The way to eliminate this ghastly syndrome is not more state force but making the system of justice, justices and justicing truly accessible to the have-nots by means of radical judicial reform that is decentralised and democratic. If this does not become possible, the suffering people may leave the courts and take to the streets. This social strategy and humanism are what we need if noxious, nocent violence is to surrender to truth, justice, equity and egalite, the majestic values of the Mahatma. Rowlatt or Chowri Chowra or Naokhali, or Gandhian courage — which do we need? Here is the critical issue. Is our justice system jejune, and have the robes been robbed of their reality?

How shall we transform our judicative process? The Executive has force at its command and the Legislature is incompetent to make meaningful laws but has the backing of the masses who voted for its members. The judiciary has the bench to sit on and the authority of the Constitution to back it. If its verdict is ignored, it has no means to enforce its rulings. Sans justice, judges are powerless power. 

What is wrong with our courts that they have lost their credibility and prestige? Corruption has crept in. Forensic morals have been jettisoned and no longer form their inviolable virtue. More than all else, delay of dockets and Himalayan arrears frustrate the hope of justice from the forensic process. While the system is accessible and open to the rich and those from the creamy layer, the under-privileged have no money and are priced out of the institution. The Bar, an indispensable factor in the adversarial system, is too expensive for the lowly and the forlorn. The fees and the formalities make the law too dear for the have-nots. The hierarchy adds to the cost, the delay and the uncertainty of the final verdict. 

Appeals upon appeals make justice through litigation inordinately dilatory and costly, and the law becomes the last means for the aggrieved to get relief. One appeal is necessary, two is too much, but we have four or five decks to spiral up. The litigant has only one life but litigation has several lives to see its end. Judgments typically take years to pronounce and some judges do not pronounce any judgment at all. They would seem to be unaccountable since there is no Performance Commission in operation. 

Another great deficiency is that a collegium that is untrained in the task, selects judges in secret and bizarre fashion. There could be room for nepotism, communalism and favouritism in the absence of guidelines. The selection process excludes the Executive. Nowhere in the world do we have judges alone selecting other judges. The collegium is a disaster: the P.D. Dinakaran episode is an example. A new code by a constitutional chapter has become an imperative. Appointment is a desideratum. 

What we now have as weaknesses of the system is Parkinson’s Law and Peter Principle. The first creates vacancies after mediocre judges cause arrears to mount. The second elevates officers to the highest level of their incompetence. Even if you have 10 times the present number of judges, so long as there is no accountability, the arrears will multiply, the judicial budget will escalate and the disgrace of the judiciary will grow. A revolution is necessary and a sense of scientific spirit and reason is needed if the judicature is not to become a caricature, or a torture of the right to justice. 

If our Founding Fathers are not to be betrayed, we need at once a judicial-constitutional code including a scissoring of the hierarchical syndrome. Or be prepared for a revolution. The unknown collegium, judges expanding their own breed, creating arrears more than anywhere else in the world, and other pathologies promoting a self-operated system… 

Is India so bereft of statesmanship that it cannot create a swadeshi-swaraj judicature? A spiritual-natural synthesis carrying out Bharat jurisprudence and justice system must be the operation of the next Parliament. 

Did not Jawaharlal Nehru assert that the Supreme Court is no third chamber of the House? Did not Franklin D. Roosevelt tell the American Supreme Court that if it did not serve the nation’s interest he will pack the court? Let us not therefore allow the Indian courts to refrain from the tryst with destiny or go back on the grand Preamble of the Constitution. We, the People of India, shall not allow the judges to produce a pathological syndrome of seppuku.

I am critical of the great institution of justice of which I was a member during the best part of my life. But as Oliver Wendell Homes, the great American judge, said while criticising his judicial system, it would be less than fair if I do not constructively and correctively criticise the system of which I was a part if I see some dark drawbacks therein. My purpose is only to improve the system, never to denigrate it. 

The Berlin Wall has fallen. Leningrad and Stalingrad is no more on the map of the Soviet Union. Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi, prisoners under the empire, have become Fathers of the Nations. Why not the Indian judiciary, patterned after the British, change and become truly swadeshi and Indian?

Judges have a heavy responsibility in the matter of chronic docket arrears. Nowhere in the world except in India does litigation last up to half a century in some instances. The art of fast disposal of cases would seem to have become alien to the judges, who do not know the strategy of having a brief hearing and delivering the judgment in a few days. A leisurely, jocose and even bellicose style, a high-and-mighty bearing, and slow and endless arguments are hampering the competent performance of the judges. American judges allow half an hour and no more. Look at the discipline that this writer showed in the stay proceedings of the Indira Gandhi case. Originality, imagination and talent have become scarce commodities. These are mostly covered up by demands for 10 times more of incompetent judges and none to expose them for fear of being hauled up for contempt.

The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has been repeatedly urging that we must have thousands more as members of the judiciary as the solution to the problem of arrears. But that will only be a remedy which could aggravate the malady. This is a mediocre recipe that could prove counter-productive. 

This view is supported by two great Indian jurists. M.C. Setalvad commented in his autobiography My Life (1970) on the statement of Dr. K.N. Katju, when he was Home Minister, that the “greater the number of judges in court, the lesser the rate of disposal for each judge. Though one may regard this as an overstatement, it is undoubtedly true that a larger judicial personnel frequently makes the courts cumbrous and slow moving." He added: "What is needed is the appointment of really able persons who can rapidly and satisfactorily deal with the accumulation of work." 

Likewise, M.C. Chagla observed in Roses in December: “To my mind the solution is simple. See that the men you appoint are proper ones. Find judges with an alert and active mind. What is more important, pay the judges better, give them a better pension, and enforce better conditions of service. The usual solution put forward is to increase the number of judges. But if the men selected are not really competent, Parkinsons’ Law will come into play. The more the judges, the greater will be the load of work."

It is time we had an effective executive which will call the bluff when judges invent alibi to explain away their incompetence and absence of integrity. An investigation into the entire higher judiciary may well weaken our faith in the integrity and incorruptibility of their lordships.

Respected Kumbakonam S.Venkatesan,

      Very great insight. Dr.Kalam, too, while dealing with measures to eradicate corruption, opined like you logically. Dr.Kalam has opined that the moral values are lacking in people and that is the root cause for corruption and as such teachers and parents should take a major role and responsibility in bringing their children with good values and so that they become responsible citizens in the course. As you rightly said, we are confronting with many problems and I think, if we don't address those, India, for sure will turn to be another "Somalia" and even worse than that. 
       Very happy to read your comment and I am learning.
Thank you. 

It is heartening to read the messages of Mr. S Muralidharan and Mr. V Durga Rao on the subject of corruption in higher judiciary, conveying their serious concerns. I agree that the matter is very serious. 

In politics matters can take dangerous turns very quickly and surprise all. Unfortunately people do not realize the implications of what they are doing. If you happen to be personally close to any of the corrupt persons and ask him if it is not wrong, he would most probably say that what he is doing is only a drop in the ocean and does not, therefore, matter! But when this becomes the universal attitude of the majority of the population, the situation becomes hopeless. I would say, it has already become so!

The people of a nation should first of all have a common affiliation. There may be thousands of differences in culture, religion and so on; but the first identity for all, without any exception, should be with the nation to which they belong. With great pains in heart, almost weeping and shedding tears, I write this line. In India it is not there. Our cantankerous politicians have foolishly and mischievously done this to us. 

You take any party, especially regional party, they deliberately divide the people. For some cheap political advantage they do this! Brahmin vs. non-Brahmin, Hindu-Muslim, Tamilian-Keralite, Maharashtrian-UPwala, Assamese-Bengali, Tanjorean-Tirunelvelikkaran and the list is endless. I have heard many people assert like, "I am a Tamilian first; and then only Indian." 

During my tours, for example in the US, I have seen the national flag beautifully fluttering in many private residences. In India mostly, if at all, one can see this or that party flag. How do you expect a nation, in which its people stand divided, hate one another from the bottom of their hearts, and refuse to identify themselves with it, to effect any improvement or reforms? 

You should only think aloud any change or reform, small or big, or start doing anything concrete or substantial; you would confront a section of people; they would not face you with any logical or constructive argument; they would not try to contribute to the subject and improve upon your suggestion; they would not come to you with friendliness and team-spirit; they would come to you to stop what you are trying to do, with the only intention of preventing the element of personal growth contained in it; and they would achieve it by turning the gullible or equally roguish people against you; they would do this very easily by carrying on a hatred campaign on the ground that you are a Malayalee or north Indian, or a Brahmin or a Chettiar, or a Harijan or a Muslim or a woman... and so on. How do you propose to reform anything, leave alone implementing it?

The castes have been perpetrated by the politicians by reservations and now they need not worry; they will be preserved for ever by vested interests. The religions are no longer for spiritual evolution; they are instruments of politicians. Languages are no longer instruments of communication; they are effective tools for disrupting harmony. Cinemas are no longer for entertainment and elevation; they are for spreading violence and for providing visual education and training to criminals. Educational institutions are no longer for developing the youth into responsible, talented global citizens; they are recruiting and training grounds for criminal politicians. Government offices are no longer for public service; they are for nepotism and corruption. 

When a tree withers, outwardly, it is ‘last come, first goes’. The buds fall first. But in reality it is ‘the first come, first goes’. The falling of the buds is only a symptom. The real cause is that the roots have started decaying. We should direct the remedial measures to the roots. 

A nation means primarily its people. Their patriotism and love for one another is the root of the nation. When it is spoiled, its various systems are adversely affected one after another. The media and the judiciary are the systems of a democracy that are affected, when the decaying process has reached its advanced stages. People should realize this and improve their political standard. Democracy demands a high level of political standard to be healthily functional. 

The measures like increasing the salary of the judicial officers etc., may be helpful but they are like taking a pill for headache; the malady is much more deep-rooted. We should work of individual self-development of every citizen of India. I hope our youth would do better than us.  

Respected Mr.S.Muralidharan,
      I am very very happy to have contact with a person like you with all the social consciousness. You may not be directly affected with the problem highlighted and neither myself. But, we think about this society thinking that all are our brothers and sisters and our future generations should not accuse us for being mute spectators at the evil forces that destroys our society. But, I don't understand onething as to why our enlightened citizens are not responding to the right causes and as to why our people with all the education and degrees from IIT's and IIM's remain always silent. Nandan Nilkeni, who has done so much to the corporate world, decided to work for the society and the public, still, our people remain silent at the problems our country faces. Its true that everybody is pre-occupied with something and we can not expect everybody to be like Gandhi, Kalam and Nilkeni. But, are all in this society pre-occupied or so busy that they can neglect our society? I have many good friends and I do follow other social and professional networking sites and networks. People have time to think about Woods and media, but, they don't have time to think about important things which shakes our nation. We have many problems internally and externally. There is a threat from our neighboring countries. One nation tries to destabilize us and another tries to dominate us at any cost. We had to maintain good relations both with Russia and also USA due to compulsions. We have insurgency issues within the country and terror alerts. There are systematic failures. Falling educational standards. Corrupt politics. Lagging behind in Research and Development. And, there are many issues needing urgent focus from the people and this society. If we do not think about this society and if behave like mute spectators at the problems those threatens the existence and development of our country, then, one should remember that they loose their moral right to claim that they are Indians. Nothing happens to Abdul Kalam if doesn't talk about vision, nothing happens to Dr.Jayaprakash Narayan if he stops working for enlightening the people, but, despite their busy schedules and commitments, have chosen to do something for this society. 
We are all bound to contribute something for this society in one way or other and its our collective responsibility to make this country problem-free, prosperous and truly developed. Mr.Barrack Obama, in his election campaign says "each generation has a responsibility to work for the betterment of next generation" and its true.
I thank my fellow too-step members and especially members like Mr.S.Muralidharan for doing their level best in making India more stronger and developed.
Thank you and will be in touch.

nice comment mr S. Muralidharan..
nice article

Dear Mr. Durga Rao,

You have been writing about judicial reforms time and again.  When all the other pillars of the democracy is shaking, how can you expect the other pillar "Judiciary" to be a mute spectator.  The tax payers and the so called vote bank are silent after watching the crumbling of other three pillars, why not we pile on them is the sentiment.  I'm saying, it is only "sentiment" and not the dictum.  Professionals like you, and my friends in the Bar, have been off and on through various fora alerting the erring persons.  Its high time that the judiciary carve a niche for themselves in order to win over public confidence.
Suggestions:

1)  Get to the root cause of the problem.
2) Plug all the loopholes that is inherent in the selection process
3)  Keep the capitalists and politicians at bay in the selection process
4)  Rebuke the erring officers in public, and leave the judgement to public
5)  Impose Moral Code of Conduct

Disprove the dictum : "Law Makers are Law Breakers"; Law unto Thyself; Exceptions are Rules; Provisos are applied when suited, etc.

Tell them not to deface the wall of the noble profession, which has, hitherto, been guarded by stalwarts!  Let's not forget the very people in the profession won the battle of freedom struggle and freed the country from foreign aggression and oppression.
  

Nice information Mr. Durga Rao, thanks for sharing....