The judiciary in the country has been doing excellent work over the decades, but there have been instances where many citizens found its conduct lacking in providing speedy justice. Often litigants have gone back with the feeling that they did not get justice
The daring use of the word, ‘judicial-activism’, in writings is only of recent origin for reasons better self-understood than explained. Verdicts are often given either as advisories or with varying reasons, or merely as ‘dismissed’. This last form is the most severe. Truly, the one-word ruling is convenient and comfortable to the presiding judge who saves time and energy of studying the entire case in detail to discover the reasons/logic for dismissal. On top of this, if you dare to pray to the presiding judge to record reasons for dismissal, you only touch a live electric wire.
Can it not be made mandatory and compulsory to provide reasons behind every judgementIJ The problem of huge number of pending cases can very easily be solved instantly by giving a kind of bonus to the judging-group party for every decided case. That will ensure even very late night-sittings to complete more cases and earn more legally, and get appreciation. Perhaps the warring parties would be most willing to contribute towards the bonus amount, as this sum would be much lower than the total amount the litigants have to spend on numerous case-hearings, thanks to the learned counsels who often deliberately (for extra regular income everyday) ensure, through varying tricks, that each case prolongs for as many years as it can be dragged.
Another classic example of the use of the stated godly unlimited powers (duly granted by the Constitution) is manifested from a not very old case, when a learned counsel complained about some age-related anomaly of a judge. The case was heard by none other than the same judge against whom the complaint was made! A very common happening is the death or killing of an evidence before the case is taken up for hearing, although it has a very simple remedy through the appointment of mobile magistrates/judges who can accompany the police party for immediate on the spot recording of statements of the witnesses (under Section 169), which cannot be allowed to be altered later.
A specialisation-wise classification of judges together with mandatory training in areas like pollution-control, educational-merits, medical-ethics, training in manipulative-technology related techniques used to manipulate decisions, results such as passing even twice-failed students, manipulating selections, manipulating/misinterpreting rules/Act, manipulating reports, manipulating the award of facilities, manipulating to punish, changing examiners for manipulation of marks for favourites, manipulating false statements even in affidavits, manipulation to evade answers for RTI queries, etc, can help.
The courts must also more increasingly tale the assistance of genuine experts from various sectors to arrive at quick and rational decision-making. For real and greater transparency and uniformity, every State should mandatorily have judges from other far-off States. While this system already exists, it needs to be more stringently enforced.
It is well cited on records that a High Court did not order any Central Bureau of Investigation or any other inquiry or that it quashed numerous illegal appointments repeatedly made by a very old technical institute of higher learning (now an IIT), although the institute had brazenly disobeyed the High Court’s directives to make selections by merit. But the court did not take the next logical step in the face such defiance to initiate contempt proceedings against this extremely influential institute. A learned counsel who got his client’s numerous writ petitions (against this institute) dismissed (an almost decade-long stay too got vacated), as ‘not-pressed’ (learned counsel stating that his client is no more interested in pursuing those writ petitions) without his client’s instructions or affidavit, incidentally got rewarded through an elevation as a judge of a High Court.
There can never be a parallel of the Indian judiciary in respect of its real absolute godly powers in most boldly and whimsically and repeatedly admitting answers by this IIT, only to face evasion of information — that information pertaining to events of 1994-96 were more than 20 years old in 2006-07, vide Nainital High Court WP 726/08, the greatest of an arithmetic-tragedy. Perhaps, there could be urgent need for a refresher course in elementary arithmetic!
like any other selection, the selection of judges to be made by the collegium alone or by the Government alone or jointly by the collegium and the Government, will invariably be subjected to human error manifested as undue bias or favour. Therefore, in any situation, it will be appropriate to make such selections only through a scientific method of evaluation, such as by working out an index of each aspirant from his/her credentials needed for a judge. The entire selection procedure can thus easily be formulated by a computer programmed for the purpose, and which can neither make mistakes nor accept any bribe nor demand any favours.
The author’s methodology, available in his research paper entitled, ‘A new method of evaluating technological research teachers’, published in the International Journal for Development Technology, England, Vol 5, 1987, pp.27-38’, would involve the working out of a geometrically-integrated index based on the various qualifications, experience, properties, virtues, abilities, etc. of each candidate The various needed requirements for a judge, like educational degrees, relevant experience, number of completed successful cases per year, professional integrity like hobnobbing with opposite parties, level of experience, etc, along with the quality-rating curves/graphs/tables including weightage for each of the needed requirements, may be prepared by a team of experts appointed by the collegium and/or the Government.
Thus, using this methodology, the score for each requirement can be worked out for each candidate and the computer will calculate the judge-index of each candidate, and will print out the merit list of all the aspiring candidates. This will enable the elimination of all the various ills of selections by humans or through interviews, where different candidates are asked different questions based on the whims or good/bad intentions of the interview-board members. The right choice, manifesting the fullest of transparency, will then automatically be made.
(The writer is a former professor at Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok and IIT Roorkee)