The author, an eminent senior advocate, compliments the Supreme Court for having struck down the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act. He warns that the Act would have, if upheld, grossly undermined judicial independence. He, however, candidly concedes that the existing Collegium system of appointment of Judges has several deficiencies and that it has enabled undeserving candidates to be elevated to high judicial positions. He has identified those deficiencies and offered suggestions on how they can be resolved
In a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court has declared the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) unconstitutional. The collegium system where judges appoint judges, will continue, as according to the Supreme Court the NJAC Act interfered with the independence of judiciary.
One of the objects of the All India Federation of Tax Practitioners (the “Federation”) being “to strive and work for independence of Honourable Courts”, we at AIFTP welcome the Supreme Court judgement. The senior members of the Tax Bar were always of the opinion that the present system of the appointment of judges should be continued albeit with increased transparency.
The Tax Bar has witnessed how the Executive in the past has tried to interfere with the justice delivery system of the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal. It is only due to a Public Interest Litigation filed by the ITAT Bar Association, Mumbai, and with the strong support of the then President of the ITAT, Honourable Shri T.V. Rajagopala Rao, could the independence of the ITAT be saved by the higher Judiciary. It may be noted that the then Law Secretary was held guilty of contempt for interfering with the judicial functioning of the ITAT. [ITAT v. V.K.Agarwal (1999) 235 ITR 175(SC), Ajay Gandhi v. B.Singh (2004) 265 ITR 451 (SC)]. This scenario of developments must be kept in mind while welcoming the above Apex Court judgment.
One can only imagine if the Apex Court would not have interfered, then what could have been the fate of the Mother Tribunal of our Country and the tax payers. One would also appreciate that the then Honourable Prime Minster of India, Shri Atal Bihari Vajapyee, on 16-01-2004, on the occasion of the release of commemorative postage stamp in memory of Late Shri N.A. Palkhivala at Mumbai, had stoutly deprecated the Emergency thus: “In those dark days, the battle for democracy was fought by many people in many different ways. Many of us in politics under the leadership of Japrakash Narayan fought it in prisons. But I have no doubt that one of the finest battles was fought in the Court rooms and that fighter was Nani Palkhivala”.
Judges could deliver verdicts such as that in Kesavanand Bharti’s case [AIR 1973 SC 1461] only because of their fierce independence.One would also appreciate that in taxation matters, the Government is always a party. If any High Court Judge decides a high-stake matter in favour of the assessee, the Government may brand him as a pro-assessee Judge thereby jeopardizing his chances of being elevated to the Apex Court, if the NJAC was to continue. We are of the firm opinion that the Honourable Apex Court has rightly done its lawful duty by striking down the Act as unconstitutional. Having said that, we are also of the opinion that there is a lot of scope for improvement in the current process of selection of judges and we at AIFTP level shall contribute our mite in the process.
Therefore, while the Supreme Court has upheld the collegium system, it has also perhaps realized certain inherent flaws in its functioning which is why on November 3, 2015, the Supreme Court will consider suggestions for improvement of the present collegium system. One of the most vociferous criticisms of the collegium system is the lack of obvious transparency with which it functions. The Federation feels that integrity and merit are unequivocally the two most essential factors that should be considered in the appointment of Judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts. Therefore, the Federation in the interest of the nation suggests as under:
1. Steps must be taken to introduce transparency and wider consultations with Bar Associations and senior members of the Bar whose integrity is beyond reasonable doubt;
2. There could be three categories of selections:
(i) After looking at the performance of advocates in courts and after enquiring into their credentials, advocates may be selected by the collegium, and thereafter, he or she may be requested to forward an application in appropriate form.
(ii) Applications maybe invited by the Registry of High Courts from advocates who are eligible to be appointed as Judges.
(iii) Selection of Judges from the lower courts / judicial authorities such as the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal, CESTAT as well as Sales Tax Tribunals across the country may be considered.
3. Eligibility criteria may be prescribed, such as:
(i) Cases involving important issues argued by the applicant;
(ii) Details of income to be declared for last five years by practicing lawyers;
(iii) Recommendations of at least three Senior Advocates or Advocates having more than 30 years of practice in that High Court may also be considered;
(iv) Importantly, contribution to the development of the profession made by the lawyer may be given additional weightage in the selection process.
4. After scrutinising the applications, the names of shortlisted candidates may be circulated in the full court of the respective High Court or at least amongst its senior Judges and thereafter, the names of approved candidates be forwarded to the Supreme Court collegium.
5. In the era of specialisation, persons who are well conversant with certain specialised areas of law such as taxation, PIL, RTI, IPR etc. deserve to be appointed. In the Income–tax Appellate Tribunal, for instance, certain Judicial Members deserve to be appointed as High Court Judges. As per the transfer procedure, a professional appearing before the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal is not posted as a Member in the same State where he was practicing.Therefore, the collegium of the High Court concerned may not have the mechanism to judge the credentials of the prospective candidates from the Income–tax Appellate Tribunal.Thus, the Collegium of the High Court may, in consultation with the Income-Tax Appellate Tribunal, devise an appropriate internal mechanism for obtaining feedback about the proposed candidates. This will help attract deserving candidates of the Income–tax Appellate Tribunal to the High Court.
6. As regards appointment and elevation to the Apex Court, the present system of collegium should be continued with greater transparency and accountability, only on merits.
As the APEX Court is going to hear the suggestions for an improved working of the ” collegium systems” on 3-11-2015, it is desired that ITAT Bar Association or All India Federation of Tax Practioners should make their suggestions before the APEX Court.
The above are some suggestions given in a limited time to improve the collegium system. Members are requested to send in their views to at aiftp@vsnl.com
Jai hind
Dr. K. Shivaram
Editor-in-Chief, AIFTP Journal
Reproduced with permission from the AIFTP Journal
I have three suggestions to make on the subject issue-
1. The judges may not be appointed to the Courts where one or more of their kith or kin are practicing. In the matter of Supreme Court Judges, such judges should officially declare if one such person is practicing there.
2. The judges recusing from any particular case or reserving their judgment should give reasons for the same which reasons should be available not only to the litigants involved but also for the knowledge of general public many of whom are students of law.
3. No job, whatsoever, should be accepted by the retiring judges. Of course they would be free to practice law as per legal norms.
(1) RTI Act should be made applicable to the collegium system.
(2) Principles laid down in Ajay Gandhi v B.Singh & Ors (2004 ) 265 ITR 451(SC)- should be adopted thereby there should be transfer of judges at least 1/3 rd of the total strength.
(3) Advocates who have been made as Tribunal members should also be considered in the High court in their place of their practice prior to the appointment as such member.
(4) The advocates should be discouraged from filing any application to seek the post of a Judge. Instead they should be invited to become a judge.
(5) There should be a quarterly meeting of Bar and Bench on this specific choice of candidates for becoming a Judge.
(6) There should be a regular data base/bank of performance by Judges at each level of courts, how many orders of the individual Judges have been confirmed in appeal, set aside so that the evaluation of their independent merit is made transparent and effective.
In Gita Ch.V, slokas 8 and 9 are clear…’We are called upon to realize the self in us which is pure and free and distinct from factors of prakrti or objective universe. The constituents of the Ego are impermanent, a flux which changes from moment to moment. There is no changeless centre or immortal nucleus in these pretenders (men) to selfhood.
This is the centre piece of man and his so called rules of law that way rules of law goes on evolving so many thousands of years and yet he is in darkness, indeed it is a like ‘light a candle in darkness’ is needed, yet we could not land on any such light as such. So we say err is human and we justify ourselves ‘repent is divine’, nothing more than that we could find so far.
Even Constitutions are evolving documents of men.
Constitutions evolving went on bringing out separation of powers, what that says keep at arms length to the other powers , what those powers are, they are also evolving powers given by the men in the society.
Therefore nothing is yet crystalized as yet.
We are groping in darkness even today.
Only fact is Man is evolving to become a meaningful man.
What all laws or articles we talk about are evolving round the clock all 24x7x365x12xn years.
We just go on testing ourselves how better we can be, that is called humility to be in man.
All our education we are getting from n number of universities is subjecting itself in research that means no one is sure what is right; if we know that is ‘right’ why we need research, at all.
Advocates arguments are based upon some kind of research on ‘some facts’ of the case on hand and he goes on applying on some given man made rules of law, as he has no other means to apply on, that way discussions take place in any court of law, to any supreme courts anywhere on the world.
Arguments work on some precedents of the courts too; that does not mean precedents are perfect but some kind of near principles of erudite thoughts on given understanding of the so called ideations of principles by so many interpretations by some kind of meaningful decoding of the not very precise principle but evolving principles over the experience of man on what shall be ethical or moral
In this way, man gave unto himself some constitutional framework, and he gave some defacto power to some groups to be law makers who are supposed to follow the the man evolved constitutions over very high deliberations.
Therefore it is absolutely unfair to the law makers like parliamentarians or legislators to think they have some ‘divine power’ to divine some statutes or some laws.
Therefore, every Act made by legislators are again subjected to constitutional courts judicial reviews when any can move the court to examine veracity of any Act, that is what we call judicial reviews.
Every law or statute undergoes regular testing when questioned by some facts that ad occured or happened,some assumes as petitioners and respondents some as prosecutors and defendants.
Courts do not have any magic wand as such to decide then and there, so they take adequate time by testing with statutes and statutes under constitutional principle resulting in further evolution of thoughts that is an unending story.
same is the story in every branch of knowledge, every kind of subject has its own ethics and morals, besides researches.
when so no cavalier fashion works is the summum bonum of every thought cycle.
so we need to be humble,
our degrees are some self satisfaction mechanics only we cannot take things for granted, like politicians who work as short timers indeed they work short periods and hence one needs to examine to the best possible levels.
We need to appreciate our collegium system is in the continuous process to work better.
None could ever thing one can solve things over night is the philosophy.
Again we have to search in us what our conscience says in us and we need a consensus, that way we developed recall and referendum bases, but we least use that principle that well.. that way without peoples consent we do want to work on some representatives mechanics that means we do not have peoples’ consensus as such on so many issues.
that has led to some judicial reviews are getting evolved always so is it wise to question judicial review itself is one needs to ask himself.
What is merit none knows is a fact. But one needs to patiently evaluate continuously is the merit to be.
Merit is being measured on some laws.
As we are aware that no act is perfect that way we resort to Natural justice principle that is the ‘Hearings’ we call in the courts..
so evolution goes on.
How can you say collegium is completely evolved but it is evolving.
yes some rotten apples might be there but that cannot be the final to stop that reasonably evolved system.
Hence, we need to be patient by allowing some errs but repentences might help evolve things better.
in fine we need to be serene to allow things evolve, as men by nature are governed by human behavior at work, as every one looks for some short cuts but one need to be vigilant to restrain that is all is my view sirs
After reading the Editorial of our AIFTP Journal, Office Bearers of the AIFTP decided to file Impleadment Petition before Supreme Court.
Accordingly, the suggestions were called. After considering the suggestions from S/Shri S. E. Dastur, Sr. Advocate, N. M. Ranka, Sr. Advocate, Porus Kaka, Sr. Advocate, Dr. M. V. K. Moorthy, Advocate and Dy. President, AIFTP and Mr. S. R. Wadhwa, Advocate. Mr. Rahul Hakani drafted the petition, the petition is settled by Dr. K. Shivaram, Sr. Advocate and the petition is filed by Mr. Rahul Kaushik, Advocate on record Supreme Court.
Mr. J. D. Nankani, President, AIFTP
1-A. Collegiums for the Supreme Coaurt – Chief Justice and six senior judges.
Opinion of such judges be considered, who have been judges in the concerned High Court.
B. Colleguim for the High Court – Chief Justice and four senior judges.
Opinion of other judges be sought and considered.
Consultation with Senior Advocates of eminence and integrity.
Preference for elevation to be given to the Senior Advocates.
2. These should be frequent meetings of the Colleguim, in order to fill up vacancies and designating as Chief Justice of High Court.
3. Priority list of persons worthy to be elevated be prepared, to expedite in case of vacancies.
4. Names recommended by the High Court’s Colleguim, be expeditiously considered by the Supreme Court’s Colleguim and in case any one or more name is not approved / doubted, whole list should not be returned and competent names be approved.
5. Vacancies should be filled up expeditiously and in no case more than 10% to remain vacant.
6. Super-annuation age for the Hon’ble Judge of the Supreme Court be enhanced to 68 from 65 and that of the Hon’ble Judge of the High Court to 65 from 62.
7. Integrity must be priority consideration for elevation.
I fail to understand the wisdom of all those who are hailing the striking down of the NJAC Act. What is the Constitutional lacuna in the NJAC Act? Even the judges have failed to fathom that except their own subjective views. Can a Court that too, the Supreme Court strike down an Act only because there is likelihood of political interference. What is the “Constitutional Defect” in the NJAC Act? On the same analogy, Indian Penal Code should be declared unconstitutional because not only politicians but policemen have been interfering and misusing the provisions thereunder (Recently, Mulayam Yadav misused the IPC & UP Police against an Officer who exposed him). Income Tax Act should be struck down as many an officer mould the applicability of the Income Tax Act to suit their pockets. Let us do away with all the laws of the land as they all have been misused in the past and could be misused in future as well. Let us survive on a day to-day basis without any laws. How can anyone hail such stupid logic given by the Supreme Court? No wonder, the judges can’t be any better than the citizens of the country after all they are selected from amongst us.
sorry Tyagiji, none can sacrifice their rights as constitutional institutions.
Here judiciary is the custodian of the constitution that i believe you are aware, parliament might pass statutes but reviewing here is not done suo motu but by PILs filed, so court rights to rightly weigh the arguments posed while AG put up his arguments too by his customary methods.
Therefore, please note you would not lose your own issues are taken away by a cavalier fashion by the government in power, so you would also need Art 32 judicial review to save yourself from an arbitrary action.
you could have noted even CJI did not agree to sit on the said commission is an obvious fact of his own right as he never wanted to lose his own right to be irrationally questioned by a parliamentary procedure, so rights are rights that no one take away friend.
if the govt representing AG need to convince the court; he did his best , failure is very normal that never to be taken as an affront but some lacunaes found so the government lost.
so sportively take it my dear friend.
Always every constitutional authority can fight out so did the govt, but PIL is the citizens right that every authority need to countenance and the right authority is the court, that way the said Act suffered ultra vires position so struck down sir.
when a judgement is done, if you need to question you have to meet with your rational legal arguments not like politicians platform speech sir you would agree if you are an advocate. i believe you are an advocate. thanks.
Dear Mr Tyagi,to like or dislike a judgment of the Highest Court of the land is one thing, but, if I am not wrong, last but one sentence of your comments, if not contempt of the Hon’ble Court,is absolutely unwarranted.
As rightly pointed out by you, not only babus but lawyers, members of the press, priests and everyone else is willing to bend for a little consideration.
I agree with Dr. Balakrishnan when he says that ‘Therefore their jobs are not like any other kind of employees or thinkers’.
A few of my comments on the subject are given below by way of additions
to Dr. K. Shivram’s suggestions.
OUR EXPECTATION FROM A HIGH COURT/SUPREME COURT JUDGE
There are mainly two expectations from a High Court/Supreme Court Judge.
They are:-
(i) Unimpeachable integrity
(ii) Outstanding competence in judicial matters
We need to find objective criteria to identify persons possessing the
above two qualifications. Regarding the first qualification of
unimpeachable integrity, a senior advocate has recently filed a sworn
affidavit alleging lack of integrity on the part of several Chief
Justices/Judges of the Supreme Court and the affidavit has remain
un-rebutted. About the judicial competence, some judges are of
outstanding ability but quite a few are mediocre and a few below
average.
We can upto a point lay down criteria whereby we aim at identifying
persons of unimpeachable integrity. Such criteria can be:-
(i) High level of earning from practice of the last five years. But some
working guidelines would need to laid down on regional basis and the
level of professional fees varies widely from place to place.
(ii) Reputation as a counsel concerning unfair practices
(iii) Nature and number of cases represented
(iv) Percentage of success in the cases represented
(v) Anything adverse found by the Bar Associations
(vi) Recommendation of at least three senior professionals
I agree with Dr. Shivram that some vacancies in the High Courts should
be reserved for judges of lower courts, Income-tax Appellate Tribunal,
CESTAT as well as Sales Tax/VAT Tribunal. At least, 25% of the posts in
the High Courts should be from this category. There should be no other
kind of reservation.
The persons selected should have at least 5 years of balance of service
left to work as a judge of the High Court.
One-third of the judges in a High court should be from outside the
State and so also its Chief Justice. One of the conditions of service
should be that the judge would be liable to work anywhere in India,
I hope, you will find the above views of some use.
With my best wishes and warm regards
Yours sincerely,
S.R. WADHWA
Interesting read from the opinions floated .
Indeed NJAC riddance is right by hon SC declaring that so called constitutional amendment is ultra vires of the constitution.
Indian advocates need necessarily write articles in the most respected law journals of various top indian universities departments of Law.
Like India Abroad of the yore, there need by journals need be published by every Ministry, where in one or two legal articles also need appear. This would give cross section of legal opinions right from professors of law , advocates, besides other branches professors too, that way a lot many articles would appear with strong views, scholarly views, what not.
Even ICAI, ICMA, IIMs, IITs and like institutions journals would have to allocate one or two articles on law and legal aspects, with macro or micro economic perspectives shall appear, after all no constitution talks about any economic theory any where, after all constitutions devote special areas of Bill of Rights, or fundamental rights and on that basis every other articles follow to preserve the individual rights especially in the case of vibrant democracies, with emphasis as to how improve the individual rights of citizens, with necessary augmentation in relation to meritorious development of man, ie, to give credence what kind of skills need to be developed in one’s own area of work or skill areas, after all skills differ from man to man as every man is just a unique creature in his thinking capacities, that way skill developments must take shape with innovation, and creativity. No one would like to attack any skill(s), as they are dependent on every individual, that way was born the ‘Individual Rights’ concept in the Constitutions development.
It is the people who form essential part of state as such Constitutions relevant need to address relevant people as total community, not to divide them but make them all as the most integral part of the Nation concerned. That is the major contribution every Nations’ constitution need to address, that way federal constitutions are created taking into account the states constitutions’ essential roles, if there are or were state constitutions.
Founders of the Indian constitution, really appreciated certain very valid contributions of the Government of India Act 1935, conceived by the British parliament for India; and that way indian constitution is mostly based on that government of India Act 1935, a developed product from 1915 Act.
Again, they took cue from other vibrant constitutions as were present in 1947. That way their contribution is indeed immense and therefore india politicians should not get into band wagon for constitutional amendments, at or on the ‘drop a hat’, after all constitution development calls for slow motion picture like and it could be very slow motion picture too depending upon the varieties of people covered by the constitution concerned, that way ‘judicial review’ mechanism is contrived in the constitutions, so as to see to apply breaks, or otherwise, just to ensure the motions are in tune with human races there living, for that purpose only, taxpayer funds the governments to ensure really meaningful development relevant to the community of persons, not based upon misunderstood ‘castes’ , but based upon the ‘division of labor’ . for labor alone develops a nation in pragmatic terms.. that way so many ideas of labor is conceived in municipal governance system as such, if anyone cares to read Kautilya’s Arthasastra (indian economics -well orchestrated development over years)…as every Nation needs a particular ethos of development, (else it would be some kind of hasty action what we did in eliminating Saddam Hussein of Iraq who successfully contained the Taliban kind forces, which forces are wreaking the world today by its own mechanics that destroys what you took to build the world over years are getting lost over night – so several times thinking process need necessarily be slow evaluation of thousands of factors, modern Iraq history proved as a micro in the macro world history ) …that way constitutions work.
Judiciary as the custodian of the constitution need use ‘judicial review ‘ to evaluate any statute proposed to modify the Nation’s constitution, that way only NJAC Act as a constitution amendment was set aside the other day, by peaceful hearings conducted by the constitution bench of the Apex court,
Albeit,there might be some procedural selection problems in the judicial selections, after all man by nature is a subjective creature, with some inherent defects that does not mean you have to kill him, but slowly correct the defects by identifying the defects and reform the same.
If the judiciary selection is made on the basis of the community of persons thoughts duly filtered by good reviews of articles written by them evaluated by ever so many thinkers in their views or comments on those articles, that if duly sorted out, assorted top level contributors could be selected as judges of the constitutional courts, possibly, after all good thinkers are indeed far and few in between, all said and done. There is no fast relief as such in handling the HRD of the judiciary.
In fact selections of judges is not that very task at all, by any measurements.
Judges are one type of creature have to think, ponder over and think besides should have excellent command over language besides on communication, after all they hear matters quite longer than any other kind of functionary, to get at the grain from the bushels of chaff presented before them. Therefore their jobs are not like any other kind of employees or thinkers, after all they once pronounce a judgement, that judgement mostly not agitated at all. If so he becomes a good judge. That way we conceived judiciary system by different tire system right from magistrate to Apex judiciary system.
Judiciary as such is indeed most tedious system, calling for examining issues buried in millions of words brought before them.
Hence we need to be slow in evaluating judges as such but once he commits a mistake he creates a Himalayan blunder, and he cannot escape being caught by eagle eyes of the people.
there is no single medical drug or surgery to cure the melody.
Judgery is a drudgery and it evolves over years, one need to be patient.
Judging is an art and not a science, like law is more an art than a science.
See, when you read Marbury v Madison(1803), you still wonder how well John Marshall with eight weeks of judicial legal training could do deliver such a wonderful judgement, that only gave the world the idea of judicial review as a system, for he used to travel on horse back to circuit courts and could deliver excellent judgements in McCulloch v Maryland(1819), Gibbons v Ogden(1824) in his 35 years of judging functions.
president Mr. John Adams could find a top judge in him and that made him to appoint John Marshal as CJ then
Collegium or NJAC, however transparent and accountable the system may be, it is destiny,which makes the judges or accused.
The legal fraternity was divided on the issue of collegium system judges appointment and was tilted more towards NJAC as it was a new Law enacted by the Legislature. But after the SC verdict, which is no doubt devoid of any logic, the legal fraternity is gleefully criticizing the NJAC as the impugned verdict have restored the “Principle of Mutuality” in Judges appointment. Why Mutuality? because now Judges will appoint themselves and from among themselves. No outsider will have a say or know how the system will work or works. The NJAC has 3 Judges out of 6 members so how one politician can hijack the whole body. but the truth lies somewhere else i.e. actual exercise of power in appointments of Constitutional Authorities. The executive wanted to claim it on the basis of they being elected & blah-blah. But the Judiciary being the last word on constitutional issues has the last laugh.
The often people say that “the judiciary is perhaps the last bastion .. ” is also a flawed argument. This is so because if there exists any other body in our system which will decide the matters after judiciary then these same people will say this same thing about that body. Otherwise these same judges or politician or for that matter any other high functionary is drawn from the same very society and hence they are no different. But they act differently on the basis of their position in society. There are various cases of allegations against the so called last bastion in our country and some these allegations were not leveled by any ordinary citizen but by the same so called last bastion.
My only point is the verdict of Hon’ble Apex Court have killed a baby, which did not even take its first breath. So you can not compare NJAC with Collegium System, which has its own inherent flaws and the Hon’ble Apex Court agreed to that effect.
Jai Rao, you are right that politics is the main cause of the disturbance.Supreme court is also looking weak.People are not serious and responsible, that’s why youth is migrating to other nations.
Kanika Arora
Chartered Accountant in Delhi
The system of collegium or the all-black-coat-cloak system,has sprung unpleasant and almost dismaying surprises in the choice of persons donning the haloed legend of ‘Justice’ before their names. It was and reprehensibly is,just lobbying at work.
The truly rich jurisprudence as per past precedents have been actually provided by the pre- -collegium system judges. But that past had a different calibre, a distinct passion as a leitmotif where the personalities of the Bench remained untouched by the ubiquitous ‘influences’,the collective ethos if not the individual idioms then overrode the mundane exigencies of an aspirational “good life” beyond or of the present.There was no society-circuit to cater to by the Judges their spouses, relatives et al . In fine no demonstration effect per se.
The true manner and mode of selection would lie somewhere in-between that revered past and the inglorious present.The packaging of an advocate as ‘successful’ is all that is seemingly required for a selection, at the cost of ‘good’ advocates. A successful advocate is not necessarily a good advocate.The Judge however has to be ‘good'( with all ejusdem generis connotation) not successful.
But packaging a mere successful one to be good enough for being considered as a potential Justice is in itself the start of misplaced priority in its selection. That is what lobbying mutatis mutandis is all about .
Transparency, they say: the profession of Advocates is inherently ego -driven, adversorial in nature, the entire black-robed clan has a brick/burning cinder/knives/ to throw at each other; there would hardly be consensus ad idim on any godforsaken name elicited out to be considered as judge . This is the mother of truth at least in the High Courts of Allahabad-Lucknow combine.Here it is actually caste, sycophancy,hard lobbyists and anti- merit which is the hall mark of selections, an easy way of selections, is to cull out names from list of state-govt. counsels who have because of their day-in-day-out appearances in courts, albeit with their pathetically prepared briefs, suspect credentials and dubious mentality have managed to catch eye-balls of presiding Judges.They get selected or at least actively considered to be Judge material.
Why not, initially a number of names of Advocates (say 5-7) from different Benches of the High Court good in their respective fields be put in the common pool, from out of these names a set of(say 10 Advocates) are preliminarily put to a simple TEST in law and in the field of their choice and then an interaction/ interview by a panel of changing judges This can be a start towards transparency of earmarking prospective candidates amongst Advocates for a preliminary calibration of mettle required to play prospective role of Judges. Fine tuning this system… requires more space and time…. meanwhile it is WHITHER INDIAN JUDICIARY
Have we forgotten how often, in sheer disdain and despondence, the SC judges have remarked….’God help our country…..’. It is irony at its best, parliament meant to be vox populi is essentially a nexus conglomerate with a sole objective of getting rich. Look at the educational quotient of our country and we talk about democracy ? Is there anything called an intelligent vote in our country? The judiciary is perhaps the last bastion capable of arresting any further pilferage or damage caused by politicians that hold the country to perpetual ransom. This country needs people of learning, responsibility and values to lift it out of the suffocating morass. Truly, if it is not in the karma of the SC to save what little that is left, then God help us…….