Delinquency may blow up in the face of our judiciary
Never before has a sitting judge of the high court been arrested and sent to jail as Justice CS Karnan has been
Never ever has a sitting judge of the high court been sent to jail. On May 9, the Supreme Court ordered the arrest and imprisonment for six months of the controversial Calcutta High Court Judge, Justice CS Karnan. This incident, where judges traded arguments in full public view and questioned each other’s sanity, has damaged the judiciary’s reputation.
This has onceagain brought into focus the need to have a mechanism–a halfway house — to deal with problems of delinquency among judges, outside the impeachment process. It become seven more important because of rising instances of misconduct among judges and the in adequacy of mechanisms to discipline them.
Under the current regime, there is an informal practice of appointment of committee judges to look into charges of indiscipline and impropriety by judges. But this mechanism is found to be wanting as a judge found guilty of misconduct can not be removed from office or suspended.
Even the tried and tested method of transferring erring judges to different high courts has proved to be ineffective. An attempt to deal with the problem was made by the government in 2006, when it enacted the Judges Inquiry Bill, proposing a committee of judges to deal with instances of misbehaviour by judges. However, it was shot down by the parliament on the premise that judges will be judges in their own causes and the process will not be fair. In the absence of a constitutional amendment and out-of-the-box thinking by judges, this problem of delinquency threatens to blow up in the face of the judiciary.
It will be a better idea to have a bill that gives more power to judiciary to deal with its in-house problems. The way forward will be an amendment in the constitution and carving out of a half-way house between the impeachment process and the informal mechanism to persuading er ring judge store tire voluntarily and contempt proceedings like the one in Justice Karnan’s case.
No doubt Justice Karnan’s actions have been unparalleled and extremely contemptuous but the Supreme Court may have just set a wrong precedent. The constitution guarantees independence to high courts by clearly defining the appointment and removal process of judges. But after the order in this case, apprehensions are bound to cloud the minds of high court judges and could have the effect of compromising their independence.
Not many countries have faced this kind of problem. And the ones that faced it have dealt with it by persuading the judge store sign. The example of noted British judge Lord Denn in gs comes to mind. He resigned as a judge after charges of racism were made against him. However, these informal methods to deal with delinquency in India have failed.