CJI D Y Chandrachud during a felicitation programme in New Delhi, Monday. (PTI)Judicial officers of the districts are not subordinate judges, Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud said on Monday, underlining the need to change the mindset towards district judiciary.
Referring to how district court judges would not even sit when High Court judges are around, he said it “speaks of our colonial mindset”.
Speaking at a felicitation organised by the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), the CJI said, “I think we have fostered a culture of subordination. We call our district judiciary as subordinate judiciary. I make a conscious effort not to call our district judges as subordinate judges because they are not subordinate; they belong to the district judiciary.”
Stressing the need for reform, he said, “We have to ensure that when we move towards a more modern judiciary, an equal judiciary and unless we in the superior courts realise that the district judiciary is really the core, cornerstone, of the judicial system, nothing is going to change. And we have to inculcate the sense of self-worth in our district judiciary.”
CJI Chandrachud also pointed to infrastructure deficiencies plaguing the district judiciary and said there are cases were even women judicial officers can’t find a washroom.
He said: “If we have to change, we have to change the face of the district judiciary…a great deal has to be done not only in terms of improving the infrastructure of the district judiciary, which is extremely important and for which we have to lay the foundation blocks today, but we have to also have to change our mindsets as to how we, as superior court judges, look at our own district judiciary; how we perceive of them.”
Stating that he is not here to do miracles, the CJI said he knows the “challenges are high, perhaps the expectations are also great”. He said, “I am deeply grateful for the sense of faith. But I am not here to do miracles, My motto every day is if this were to be the last day of my life, have I left the world a better place. This is what I ask myself everyday”, he said.
Stating that “listing (of cases) has been a real problem”, he acknowledged the efforts put in by former CJI U U Lalit to make the system more transparent.
“Listing has been a real problem in our court. Justice Lalit has taken very concrete steps towards making a more transparent system. I propose to continue that, build on the work which has been done by Justice Lalit. We need to make the listing of our court transparent, objective and perhaps my aim is to employ technology so as to remove the element of the human interface in the listing process because all discretion tends to become a discretion which is capable of not being employed properly,” he said.
The CJI said the court has “already started working on it and we are trying to prepare SOP’s so that it should not depend on who is the Chief Justice”.
CJI Chandrachud said he feels that it is “important that we institutionalise these processes… It must be a part of an institutional mechanism.”