S KAMAT, ALTO ST. CRUZ
Judiciary reforms have long been overdue in India. The judiciary lately, including the Supreme Court has been trying to cover itself with an invisible cloak of armour called privilege. It is time we called this bluff and brought the judiciary and its members down to earth. There have been many instances of misuse of power and corruption in the judiciary including by Justices of the High Court which the judiciary insisted on handling as an internal matter. Not only that, we had the famous (infamous?) case of previous Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who claimed that he was wrongly accused by a woman employee of sexual harassment and for that he himself called a special hearing on a holiday and absolved himself of the charge, without allowing any other authority to enquire into the matter, going further to discharge the woman from service. It was hardly some time that the Chief Justice had retired that the woman, on the basis of a petition, was reinstated into service. Thus one is not sure whether the charge was true. If not, then how was she taken back and not proceeded against for drawing up a false charge against a senior functionary. But nothing came out of it since the cloak of privilege was drawn across this case also. It is surprising that the National Women’s Rights Commission did not take up the case for defending the honour and rights of the accused woman. Thus Prashant Bhushan is very correct in firstly, raising the issue and secondly, in not agreeing to give an apology for his actions. The judges on the Bench hearing this case do not seem to understand how they have made a laughing stock of themselves by saying that they will now institute a panel to set up a SOP (standard operating procedure) on how members of judiciary can be charged for any offences that they may have committed and how these charges can be pursued. Does this mean that since Independence in 1947, for 74 years now, we do not have a system to examine, charge and proceed to take action against a section of our society which prides themselves on their wisdom and are expected to outline the legal guidelines for our society? It is not enough to say that there were procedures for such matters but they were internal to the judiciary. Moreover, particularly in the last decade or more, such instances within the judiciary have increased and it is time we brought them out in the open.