SC judges revolt against CJI With great power comes great responsibility
Our great leaders who had fought for the independence of the country, while framing our Constitution, laid down great ideals in it for the development of the country and people both spiritually and materialistically. These ideals are spread over all the chapters of the Constitution. But, various events and subsequent generation of leaders have degenerated the values in our society which resulted in the loss of faith on politicians. Corruption and lawlessness have become a part of life in politics and executive. Judiciary is the only institution which keeps our faith in democracy.
Our judges burn midnight oil and sacrifice their private life to adjudicate and safeguard the rights and interests of our citizens and for the liberty and rights we enjoy now, we owe much to the judiciary. Most of the credit goes to the judges of the Supreme Court and the high court.
Basic concept in the administration of justice in the Constitutional courts is that the individual judges whether called as Chief Justice or puisne judge, they are equal with one another. In the judicial function being performed by the judges, one judge cannot interfere with another judge. Even the Supreme Court cannot direct members of the lowest judiciary to pass an order in a particular way. That is the nature of independence being enjoyed by members of the judicial institution. Hence, in the matter of judgment delivery function, the judges cannot have any grievance. If one judge of a bench differs from the view of the same bench, the way available to them is the delivery of dissenting judgment which we see regularly. But, in the matter of internal administration, there arises differences among judges. The basic principle of management is no one can receive orders from two masters and serve under two masters simultaneously. Hence, to have an effective management of the affairs of the judiciary, the control over the internal administration just like appointment and regulation of the staffs, allocation of works among the judges and staffs are vested with the Chief Justice. But, this power is only one of convenience. In order to maintain harmony in administration, the person having this power is having greatest responsibility to upkeep the faith of the other judges over the whole institution.
The Supreme Court means the whole body of judges and not only the Chief Justice. Though the Chief Justice is the master of the roll and has administrative control over the staff, he cannot exercise his power whimsically. The distribution of the businesses among the judges is to be done by taking into consideration the established practises and the human sentiments of the brother judges.
Though the Chief Justice of India is the master of such powers, he has to exercise his powers in such a way, it maintains harmony in the whole administration. It should also maintain the faith of people on judiciary for whose benefit the judiciary exists. The conduct of the four senior judges in approaching the press and releasing the copy of the letter written by them shows that the Chief Justice of India is unable to exercise his administrative powers in a harmonious way. Hence, as a top administrator of the judiciary, he has failed in this field of internal administration.We the people, approach the judiciary with a grievance and request the judiciary to protect our rights and interests and prevent the arbitrary exercise of power. But, now, the top four judges have complained to people that the Chief Justice of India is not exercising his administrative powers in the way Constitution of the country desires.
This complaint to people has given food to the press but shaken the confidence of people over the efficiency of the judiciary in the matter of redressal of their grievances whenever their rights are violated. Hence, there is an urgent need on the part of the whole body of judges to sit together, ignore the past bitterness and take a decision in a way that would uphold the faith and the trust, the people have on them. I hope, the situation would not be further aggravated by all the stakeholders of the judiciary.
