A day after Parliament passed two Bills to scrap the collegium system of appointment of judges, Chief Justice of India (CJI) RM lodha on Friday said that the three organs under the Constitution — Judiciary, Executive and legislature — should not encroach upon anybody’s territory.
Speaking at the Independence Day function organised at the Supreme Court, Justice lodha said that every organ must have mutual respect for each other and should not encroach on anybody’s sphere.
Addressing the gathering of Supreme Court judges, lawyers and law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, CJI said, “I am sure that people in Judiciary, people in Executive and people in Parliament are mature enough to have mutual respect for each other and ensure that each of them is permitted to work in their sphere unhindered by any extraneous influence.”
He said Constitution makers had demarcated roles for each organs of the state to operate to rule out conflict. He said, “Without demarcating among Judiciary, Executive and Parliament, the makers of our Constitution ensured each organ continues to do its duty without encroaching the other’s space.”
The issue of appointment of judges had caused tension between the Judiciary and Executive, particularly since the move aimed to replace the two-decade old collegium system with a broad-based Judicial Appointments Commission having three judges (including CJI), law Minister and two eminent persons selected by a select committee of CJI, PM, and leader of Opposition.
At present, the collegium appoints over 900 judges to higher judiciary. The State Governments, on the other hand, appoint about 19,000 judges in lower courts.
Union law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, in his speech, assured that sanctity and independence of Judiciary will be held high. “Our Government’s commitment to the sanctity and independence of judiciary is complete and we hold it very high,” Prasad said.
He said the Government, particularly Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will scrap all outdated laws. “Till now 36 outdated laws have been shortlisted and their repeal Bills are pending. I will ensure that in the next session of Parliament around 200 to 300 outdated laws will be repealed. I am pursuing the matter,” Prasad said.
The CJI also expressed anguish over the snail-paced criminal justice system that was leading to poor disposal of cases. “It is curious and tragic paradox that prisons are housed more by undertrials than convicts,” he said while noting that in central prisons more than 50 per cent inmates are undertrials and in case of district prisons the figure is more than 72 per cent.
“As head of judiciary, my heart pains to find that criminal justice system leads to tremendous suffering, pain, exploitation of human rights and deprivation of human liberty,” the CJI said, referring to delayed trials. He urged the law Minister to consider increasing the judge strength as the present judge-population ratio is dismal.
He even asked the Government to equip police, prosecution and judicial officers with technology tools to handle cyber crimes and cure deficiencies in prosecution.