007 Seven sins of Indian Higher Judiciary

Indian Express.Com, in its dated 11.11.11, published a news item. Link for reading this News Item: Higher judiciary guilty of 7 sins: ex-SC judge pulls no punches.

SEVEN SINS TAKING PLACE IN INDIAN JUDICIARY

1. temporise, stone-wall and prevaricate.
2. Keeping the process of Appointments of High Court and Supreme Court Judges as extreme Secrets.
3. Taking Independence of Judiciary to mean "capable of thinking for oneself,"
4. plagiarism and prolixity. --Prolific and often unnecessary use of passages from textbooks and decision of other judges - without acknowledgment of in the first case and with acknowledgment in the latter. Many judgments are, in fact, mere compendia or digests of decisions of decisions on a particular issue with very little original reasoning in support of the conclusion,
5. Judicial arrogance as to one's intellectual ability and status.
6. Intellectual Arrogance, and Intellectual Dishonesty.
7. Nepotism. "What is required of a judge is a degree of aloofness and reclusiveness not only vis-a-vis litigants but also vis-a-vis lawyers. Litigants include the Executive," "Injudicious conduct includes known examples such as judges using a guest house of a private company or a public sector undertaking for a holiday or accepting benefits like the allocation of land from the discretionary quota of a Chief Minister. I can only emphasise that again nothing destroys a judge's credibility more than a perception that he/she decides according to closeness to one of the parties to the litigation or what has come to be described in the corridors of courts as 'face value'."

ybrao-a-donkey's personal views not intended to be imposed on others

Ms. Ruma Pal, former Supreme Court Justice was reported to have made the above comments.

How we can view, probably
1. Ms. Jus. Ruma Pal is entitled to her own views. We shall respect her right to express them publicly also.

2. We can make two notes: Had she made these observations before becoming a Supreme Court Judge, she might/would not have been appointed. Instead, she would have been tried for contempt of court.

She would not have been justified in making these comments, while working as a Supreme Court Judge, as that would tantamount to insulting her own colleagues.

3. She seems to have, therefore, done the right thing of commenting after retiring. Better late than never! But, she may still be inviting contempt of court proceedings. Or at least, she would be foregoing appointments as some regulator or Chairperson of Commission of Enquiry. Alternatively, we can also construe that she may be making these comments only because she is not receiving her due enquiry commission / regulator job. But I shall not prefer the second comment because it will be prejudging. We can wait and see how things will turn out.

4. Our Judicial System is our last straw to float in an avalanche of corruption. Though not a dependable straw, we have no alternative.