Behind the clash between judiciary and executive 

Whether a touch of existential wrangling between the judiciary and the executive is welcome or not, it is not a new phenomenon. During Indira Gandhi’s regime too, a single party with a majority and strong, popular leader attempted to turn things to its advantage. Democracy thrives on the three organs of the state, the executive, the legislature and the judiciary, being independent of each other, and not necessarily on their interdependence. The state, as the biggest litigant, has an axe to grind; also, the highest judiciary is expected to scrutinise laws passed by the legislature, making a distinction between a bad or good law as judged against the provisions of the Constitution and the citizen’s rights.

What should be causing palpable worry is the underlying text of the ongoing tussle between the executive and judiciary that has left the highest judiciary deeply divided. It was an unprecedented situation where senior judges had to address a press conference against the ‘master of the roster’, the Chief Justice of India. The extent of the Centre’s ‘interference’ in judicial administration was still a matter of conjecture. Not anymore, not after the second highest judge of the apex court, Justice Chelameswar, put it in black-and-white in his recent letter to the CJI Dipak Misra and other judges, calling for an open court. 

The executive which has been accused of ‘sitting’ on judges’ appointments (we have seen a former CJI reduced to tears before the PM) despite the huge vacancies and backlog of cases, wrote directly to the Karnataka High Court to check the antecedents of a district judge whose elevation to the HC was recommended by the SC collegium. It took a strong letter from Justice Chelameswar, forwarded to the chief justice of Karnataka HC by the CJI, to stop the ‘blatantly inappropriate’ and ‘uncalled for’ probe into a settled matter. There’s no word on the open court as yet, though there’s a precedent. What is unprecedented, however, is the time we live in, with even the word ‘impeachment’ of CJI popping up in the corridors of Parliament.