JUDICIARY IS ABOVE JUDGE
US President Franklin D. Roo-sevelt had once said: “We have reached the point as a nation where we must take action to save the Constitution from the Court and the Court from itself.” India’s Su-preme Court is passing through a simi-lar crisis. Our judges are deeply divided among themselves. The letters written by senior judges to CJI Dipak Misra are an indication of the trust deficit between them. The CJI should now call a full-court meeting as requested by next-in-line CJI Ranjan Gagoi and Madan Lokur. The unfortunate events of the past few months including the press conference by the four dissenting judges, the notice of impeachment and its rejection have created an unprec-edented crisis of legitimacy for our ju-diciary, and a full-court hearing on the judicial side seems necessary to discuss outstanding institutional issues.One also hopes better sense will prevail with the political Opposition, and it will desist from challenging the Vice-President’s order in the Supreme Court even though there is some merit in their argument that the Rajya Sabha chairman cannot, on his own, at the stage of admission itself, pass a judgment on charges—and call them ‘imaginary’ and ‘scandalous’. If there is some substance in the charges, and the required number of House members has signed the impeachment motion, he should ideally admit it—and leave it to an inquiry committee to determine whether the charges have been proved