AN APPEAL TO THE HON'BLE CHIEF JUSTICE OF INDIA BY MJN

THE NATIONAL LAWYERS’ CAMPAIGN FOR
JUDICIAL TRANSPARENCY AND REFORMS (Regd)
       304, Hari Chambers, 3rd Floor, 54/68 SBS Marg, Near old Custom House, Fort Mumbai- 400 023.
E-Mail: aminrohini@gmail.com,  mathewsjnedumpara@gmail.com
Cell # +91 98205 35428 ,  022 22626634
Mathews J. Nedumpara
President Mrs. Rohini M. Amin
Vice President     
Mumbai Bijoy Krishna Adhikari,
Vice President
Kolkata Navaneetha Krishnan
General Secretary Parbinder Singh Sethi,
Treasurer

AN APPEAL TO THE HON'BLE CHIEF JUSTICE OF INDIA

11th January, 2016

Hon'ble Shri T.S. Thakur,
Chief Justice of India,
Supreme Court of India,
Tilak Marg,
New Delhi 110 001.

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIP,

  We, the humble campaigners for greater transparency and reforms in the judiciary, consider Your Lordship’s elevation as the Chief Justice of India (CJI) to be a turning point in so far as the aspirations of the common man for a just and fair justice delivery system.  It is no flattery, and means no insinuation of Your Lordship’s predecessor CJIs, that nearly a month of Your Lordship occupying the august office of the CJI has made enormous difference in so far as the faith of the ordinary men and ordinary lawyers in the CJI as the pater familias of the Indian judiciary.

2.  Without meaning any innuendo or criticism of Your Lordship’s predecessors, Your Lordship, we are afraid to say, has inherited a legacy where the common man believe that while the Supreme Court insisted the highest degree of transparency in all walks of life, when it came to its own affairs it chose to adopt a different standard, nay, a double standard.  The judgment of the Five-Judge Constitution Bench in the NJAC case, declaring the Constitution (Ninety-ninth Amendment) Act, 2014 and the National Judicial Appointment Commission Act, 2014 (the Acts, for short) as unconstitutional, and aborting the NJAC which the said Acts conceived without allowing those who supported the Acts and present in the Court for 31 days of its hearing to raise the plea that the said Acts, which are in the realm of executive and legislative policies involving no violation of anyone’s fundamental rights – for which alone the jurisdiction under Article 32 of the Constitution could be invoked – are not justiciable and, therefore, the challenge of the said Acts is wholly misconceived, has meant a deadly blow in so far as the concern for greater transparency in the appointment of Judges to the higher judiciary is concerned.

3.  The contempt of Court jurisprudence, unknown to civil law and which has become obsolete in common law countries, is so much abused in India that anyone who dares to raise his voice against the judiciary is hauled up for contempt of Court, rendering the very concept of freedom of speech in jeopardy.  The collegium system of appointment of Judges meant the august office of the Judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts being monopolized by the kith and kin, juniors and friends of sitting and former Judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts, celebrated lawyers, Chief Ministers, Governors et al and a few first generation lawyers who are all politically connected or are close to big industrial houses, who in turn appoint their kith and kin and friends as Senior Advocates.  The ordinary lawyers, who constitute 95% of the legal fraternity, are completely marginalized.  The 5% of the upper class and elite lawyers monopolize 95% of the revenue of the legal profession which they have reduced to an industry.  Sons and daughters of the common men, taxi drivers, teachers, farmers etc., who have no Godfathers, are wholly neglected.  While the powerful and the very rich people like Salman Khan, who is able to, even when he is on bail, secure his appeal of 2015 to be taken up for hearing and allowed by the High Court of Bombay in the year 2015 itself, appeals of life convicts, who remain in jail since the dates of their arrest in 1998, remain pending for hearing.  Senior lawyers like Ram Jetmalani, Harish Salve et al, who represent the cause of the rich, are allowed to argue for days and days, the ordinary lawyers, who represent the cause of the common men, are refused a fair hearing and are even shooed away.  In some High Courts the things have reached such a pass that the undersigned are scared to appear when the Court Room is thinly crowded because in a crowded Court they may not face the risk of being hauled up for contempt for the fearless submission they make, compared to a less crowded Court Room where we are often ill-treated.

4.   We address Your Lordship with a heavy heart.  We are sad that we have to say what we have said above, the truth but and nothing but the truth.  We have resolved to be reticent and have taken every care to put across what we feel so intensely in the most respectful, dignified and decorous language as possible.

5.  We believe that the institution of judiciary is not for lawyers and Judges; the real stakeholders are “we, the people”.  The Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, which has been grossly abused, undoubtedly has literally meant a gag on the media and has, to a large extent, secured the people from being not aware of the true state of Indian judiciary.  To keep the public at large in darkness is no solution.  The institution of judiciary should allow itself to be criticized like the other wings of the State; allow the public to know its deficiencies, for, ultimately the institution of judiciary is built on the confidence of the people.  It cannot be gainsaid that the cancer of corruption has spread its tentacles to the corpus of our nation and no branch of it, nay, even the judiciary, is exempt from that.  The most effective disinfectant is sunlight, so has held the Hon'ble Judges.  The Supreme Court has been the champion of the cause of transparency when it came to disclosure of assets, liabilities and criminal records of the political case.  The Supreme Court has been the real moving spirit behind the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act); yet, when it came to its own affairs, we are afraid to say, the judiciary adopted a different standard.  Wherever and whenever a citizen has asked for information relating to selection and appointment of Judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts by invoking the RTI Act, not only such information was denied, but the Public Information Officers have even taken the stand that furnishing of the information would amount to contempt of Court.

6.  In the Supreme Courts of 50 countries, including United Kingdom, the Court proceedings are video-recorded and are even telecast live.  The American Supreme Court is the only exception where its proceedings are audio-recorded since 1955.  However, in so far as our Supreme Court is concerned, the plea to audio-record its proceedings has found no acceptance from the Hon'ble Judges.  It is said that “no army can stop an idea whose time has come” (Victor Hugo).  The advancement of information and technology has meant greater appetite of the common man to know the affairs of Courts.  There can be no logical or rational foundation for resisting the common man’s demand for video-recording of Court proceedings, at least for introducing it on a pilot/experimental basis.  For us, the ordinary lawyers who constitute the vast majority of the campaign, quashing of the aforesaid Acts is not a matter of mere theoretical issue.  So far as the ordinary lawyer is concerned, a transparent, just and fair system of selection of appointment of Judges of the higher judiciary and abolition of the classification of lawyers into two classes, Senior Advocates and ordinary Advocates, is a question of his very existence.  Casteism and apartheid in legal profession has to be brought to an end.  That lawyers who are not designated as Senior Advocates are very often unfairly treated in Courts is a fact which cannot be denied.  Advertisement of vacancies of Judges of the higher judiciary, invitation of applications from all eligible stakeholders, open and transparent selection and appointment of Judges, non-discriminatory treatment to lawyers who are not designated as Senior Advocates, video-recording of Court proceedings, which could be secured without any difficulty and at very little cost, would mean a revolution in the realm of transparency in so far as the justice delivery system is concerned.  We are confident that Your Lordship will give more focus on these issues.

7.  We consider that the country is fortunate to have your gracious and noble self as the CJI, though Your Lordship’s tenure is short.  The task before Your Lordship is daunting with more than 40% of the posts of Judges remaining vacant.  The issue which Your Lordship is confronted with is not merely a theoretical or legal issue, but a practical one which requires enormous practical wisdom, sense of fairness and statesmanship.  It is only the grace of the providence that we have presently a CJI who is bestowed with all the aforesaid qualities in abundance.

With respectful regards,
Yours sincerely,

(Mathews J. Nedumpara)
President