(
Reproduced from Times of India September 10, 2008
page 15)
SC concedes
rot in judiciary
Stresses On Need To Evaluate Efficacy Of
Mechanism To Check Corruption
Dhananjay Mahapatra | TNN
New Delhi: The much respected
judiciary is caught on the backfoot. Suddenly,
charges and accusations of corruption against judges,
always talked in hushed tones in court corridors, are
flying thick and fast—all in the open.
Weighed down by the
gravity and the spread of the accusations and
perturbed by the southward trend of the judicial
index in public, the Supreme Court on Tuesday
conceded, “The rot has set in.”
The scams have hit one
by one in close regularity—the Ghaziabad
judiciary scam involving judges of all threetiers in
the illegal withdrawal of Rs 23 crore from provident
fund accounts belonging to class IV employees in
February, the cash-for-judge scam in Punjab in August
followed by the CJI’s recommendation for
impeachment of a tainted Calcutta HC judge.
Expressing concern,
senior advocate Anil Devan wondered if the immunity
given to SC and HC judges from registration of FIRs
should remain valid, given the changed standards of
public life. He said unless an investigation was
carried out, how would one know if the allegations
against a judge were true. “Any delay in
investigation against a judge means adding fuel to
the fire set by speculation,” he said.
Solicitor general G E
Vahanvati was also for urgent drastic action that
would boost the sagging image of the judiciary.
“The time has
come as people have started categorising some judges
as very honest despite it being the foremost
qualification of any judge. It’s the system.
We’ve to find a mechanism to stem the rot,”
a bench of Justices Arijit Pasayat, V S Sirpurkar and
G S Singhvi said. It asked, “Has the existing
mechanism become outdated? Should with minor
modification, the mechanism could still be
effective?”
The existing mechanism
appears to have worked in case of Justice Soumitra
Sen, corruption charges against whom were first
inquired by a three-judge committee which recommended
his removal and on his refusal the CJI recommending
the PM to initiate impeachment process against him.
But, should he have
escaped the rigours of a criminal investigation under
the Prevention of Corruption Act, seems to be the
moot question. A PIL sought a direction from another
bench of Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, Justice P
Sathasivam and J M Panchal to make all sitting judges
immune from all types of investigations by police.
The Chief Justice knew
better. He said, “Complete immunity to SC and HC
judges cannot be granted. We (the judges) do not want
any such protection.”
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