My humble request to the Hon’ble judges of the SC is, “Practice what you preach, preach what you practice ” and not otherwise. 90% of the WPs involving the lives, liberties and properties of the common citizens are dismissed in limine, by a one line order, namely, ‘the WP is dismissed’.99.99% of the Review Petitions are dismissed in stereotype orders in Chambers without hearing the litigant or his lawyer. The fate of the curative petitions are no different. These are undeniable facts. In all humility I beg to submit that Article 32 is only available to Ratan TATA, Harsh Mander, Prashant Bhushan, Arnab Goswami et al.
Our judiciary is facing a great crisis of credibility. It cannot be overcome by mindless use of Contempt jurisdiction, to silence those who dissent. On the contrary, the court should wholeheartedly welcome the reforms which we (NLC) and like minded organizations demand, namely:
1.Dismantling of Collegium system of appointments and transfer and substitution of the same by a truly transparent and independent NJAC and selection of judges by invitation of applications from all eligible and even written test at the HC level. This is a crying need because judiciary has become the exclusive monopoly of a few families of lawyers and judges.
2.Video Recording of the court proceedings and access to such records to the litigant and their lawyers and public at large.
3. Abolition of senior designation system, so too, AOR.
4.Transfer of judges whose immediate relatives are practicing in the very same court to another HC.
5.Abolition of total immunity which the judges enjoy today even from penal offence. Not merely corruption, but in even in cases involving sexual harassment and even murder, no FIR can be registered. Immunity is required to be limited to their judicial functions and that too so long as they act in good faith. Under Roman law the judges enjoyed absolute immunity. “Ab alios acta altori quod faceris ” namely, that a judge shall be accountable to the God meaning thereby that to none else. However, this Roman law principle was abandoned in the 17th century. Lord Chancellor Francis Bacon was punished for bribery. All are equal before law and nobody shall be above law. No exception can be made to this principle.
6. Judicial Accountability.
7.Restoration of the pristine glory of the civil court as a court of record of plenary jurisdiction, the access to which is the birth right of the citizens and not at the discretion of the judges.
8. ‘Precedent’ undoubtedly was a good concept, but no longer. Now, we must abandon it because it has become the greatest threat to the Justice delivery system. Today, judgements even on a very simple subject often run into hundreds of pages which has often resulted in declaring of day as night and night as day by the court. Nothing is more pernicious than “precedent”. We must adopt the civil law system where the judges decide according to their interpretation of the statute, and not by precedent. It is not a perfect system. But it is far better than our system which has lost its utility, because today it has lost direction galloping in the mire of precedents.
I will post shortly the 14 agenda of the NLC.
Mathews J Nedumpara
