What goes on in secret chambers of collegium?

The Chief Justice of India T.S.Thakur performed an ‘oral’ surgical strike on the Central Government lamenting that the Union of India had not kept its word to accord topmost priority in the process of appointment of judges to the constitutional courts.

A furious CJI said it was nine months since several names were recommended for judgeship and clearance is still awaited from the Law Ministry and that consensus on the Memorandum of Procedure on the appointments was being used as a red herring.  It would appear as if the judiciary has occupied the moral high ground while the Executive is in the throes of woes.

It is made out as if the pressure is being faced by the judges due to delayed appointments. But it is not as if the judicial process is coming to a grinding
halt thanks only to the slumbering ways of the Executive. Sorry Mi lords, it is not all the fault of the Executive.

Let’s get real. All this tall talk about the pendency of cases before the constitutional courts must not be read in isolation. Out of 4 crore-odd cases pending across all courts in India - from the lowly magistrates courts to the top court - over 80% of cases are pending before the subordinate courts. It is not the making of the Executive that undertrials are languishing in jails.  

A visit to the courts below would tell the tale. All these courts come under the care, custody and control of the top court and CJI is presiding over it all.

Coming to the more important issue of cases pending before all these courts, including the high courts and the Supreme Court, it is a fact that there is total reluctance to allow Right to Information to the citizens. And when Justice K.Kannan, now retired, declared his assets on his blog in response to a public call from the advocate Prashant Bhushan, the Supreme Court questioned Kannan’s ‘unilateralism’. Why?

There are hundreds of cases of huge importance where hearings have been completed and orders have been reserved and not pronounced yet. There are instances of judges hearing cases, reserving orders for years and then quietly retiring into the sunset and the cases being compelled to be heard all over again.  Would the High Courts and top court come out with the details of all these cases where they are lagging behind in pronouncing orders? It is all top secret just as the ways of the collegium are. Justice Ruma Pal was right - “The collegium is the best kept secret in India”.

It is these secretive proceedings that the collegium is keen to have implemented with alacrity. It’s the Constitutional  Bench of the top court which trashed the NJAC statute that conceded that it was time for transparency in collegium deliberations and admitted that there was a need for a transparent MoP. A senior member of the collegium, Justice J. Chelameshwar, exposed the ‘oral convention’ and the CJI is as yet unable to mollify him to persuade him to attend the deliberations.

To go hammer and tongs against the Executive as if all the wrong lies with them is unfair and unjust. Let the people be told the truth of what goes on in the secret chambers of the collegium. Only then we shall yield you the moral high ground you may truly then deserve.
     
(The writer is a practising advocate at the Madras high court)