Why India Needs Independent Judiciary?
There is a growing debate in India about the Judiciary and its role. The successive judgements of the SC have created a kind of euphoria over the Judicial activism in our country. The SC is the custodian of the constitution of India. It has the power to decide the constitutionality of an act passed in the Parliaments. However, the independence of the judiciary in the Indian democratic situation is dependent on two factors: independent selection and incorporating diversity. Without these two factors, the Judiciary will be at the mercy of the executives and the parliament.
The collegium formed by the SC judges was the body that selected the judges in the High Court and the BJP/RSS Government wanted to intrude in the process of selecting the judges and hence the selection of the judges also became a political process. Indian judiciary is feudal in nature as a few families from particular castes are dominating the Judiciary and hence there is a clear-cut need for bringing the people from diverse backgrounds in the Indian Judiciary.
When the RSS/BJP did not accord with the idea of the collegium, it came out with National Judiciary Administration Commission (NJAC) and came up with the Manual of Procedure (MoP) to appoint the judges. The SC Collegium has some issues with some of the aspects of the procedures. But, the most interesting issue in all this mess is the invoking of the SC judgment of July this year, which punished Justice Karnan for the contempt of the court and the RSS/BJP Government is citing that case to push for the executive interference in selecting the judges to the Supreme Court and the High Courts.
Justice Karnan was the victim of the nepotism as no one considered his case with the juridical point of view when he cried foul and raised the issue of caste-based discrimination. Justice Karnan is a Scheduled Caste and likes of him who have attained to the post of the High Court Judge are rare. He could become the High Court Judge because he has legal acumen and talent to judge. The top brass in the higher judiciary completely neglected his plea of justice. On the contrary, the RSS/BJP Government is citing his case to push executive interference which implies the political interference.
Looking at the case of Justice Karnan and the dominance of the few families in the judiciary, it is important to create an independent body with the reservation for SC, ST, and the OBCs so that the Judiciary becomes responsible to all the segments of the Indian population. Citing the case of Justice Karnan as the reason for political interference shows that RSS/BJP is not truly committed to bringing in diversity in India.
Author – Mangesh Dahiwale, Human Rights Activist
Justice Karnan, there is no doubt, is a victim of caste prejudice. If he were otherwise incompetent, the same would have been highlighted by media and the upper caste lobby in every forum. That they did not do and this shows he is very mature and experienced in his own field.
But Justice Karnan has exposed the Government which claims to show zero tolerance for corruption. Here is a judge of Calcutta High Court who has taken pains to chargesheet number of judges of High/Supreme Courts who are guilty of corruption with definite proof and supporting evidences to fix them. But the Government did not show any honesty to proceed against them. Why ? all of them charged by Justice Karna are high caste men.
In the name of fight against corruption, the objective is to eliminate the lower caste men from position of importance and authority.
Services of judicial majistrate, Prabhakar Gwal, Sukma in charge of Vyapam cases has been terminated. He did not succumbed to pressure. He was upright and impartitial. He did his job fearlessly. But suddenly he has been dismissed from the service without even a showcause notice to him.
This shows the depth of curruption.
By the way Gwal is dalit.
We fully agree with your article and until there is representation of all on equitable formula, the Democratic value of the constitution of India is not respected well.The judiciary,the Executive and the legislature all three to be on equitable representation basis from the angle of diversity ….