When credibility is lost, the judiciary becomes a corpse
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The Chief Justice of India (CJI) has taken immediate steps to protect the credibility of the judiciary after a shocking incident in which a bundle of currency notes was found at the home of a High Court judge. The incident occurred when the fire brigade, arrived to douse the fire at the house of Delhi High Court Judge Yashwant Verma, who was out with his family for the Holi holidays. Justice Verma has since claimed that the money did not belong to him and was brought into the house by someone else, and there was a conspiracy behind it. It is reported that around 18 crores of unaccounted money was found in the judge's house. It is a mystery why it took a week for the incident that took place on the night of March 14 to come to light. In any case, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court called an extraordinary meeting of the judges of the Supreme Court. Although Justice Verma was transferred, it was later clarified that it was not related to this incident. Delhi High Court Chief Justice D.K. Upadhyay, who conducted an internal investigation, has submitted a report to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, confirming that bundles of currency notes were found in Justice Verma's house on the day of the fire. The police commissioner was also caught on video handing over the money found tied in a sack. Supreme Court Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna has also taken the unusual step of publishing the report and the video footage on the court website for the sake of transparency. It is expected that there will be a thorough investigation and further action.
Credibility is the lifeblood of the judiciary. If it is lost, then the judiciary is just a corpse. Corruption plays a significant role in eroding credibility. There are unconfirmed allegations that judges even dilute judgments in return for monetary or other gratifications. There was even an incident in 2016 when a judge was arrested for taking bribes. It is not reassuring that there are so many corruption incidents without arrests and cases. Even the judgments given by Supreme Court judges who accept positions offered by the government after retirement have been questioned. A study has shown that 77.78 per cent of the country's legal experts believe that the internal anti-corruption arrangements of the judiciary are ineffective. Many former judges have confessed that the judiciary has been significantly eroded by the worm of corruption. Unless it can be assured that money and power do not influence the functioning of the judiciary, it will not have credibility.
Apart from such external influences, the personal inclinations of the judges themselves hinder the independence of the judiciary. In some cases, a special bench is convened on a holiday to grant bail to the accused, while in other cases, people are unjustly imprisoned for years. It is not that there are no judges who are capable of speaking up against the authorities and resisting government pressure, but their number is dwindling considerably. There is also a strong complaint that lapses that could previously be considered isolated irregularities are becoming institutionalized, as in the Babri Masjid case. The Supreme Court itself, which gave the directives for the Places of Worship Act, has also created room for supercedingit. If corruption is an obvious crime, then the delay in cases and the extrajudicial bias of judges are indirect flaws. As much as corruption, the inaccessibility of the judiciary and the bias of judges play a role in eroding credibility. Former Chief Justice N V Ramana lamented the other day that people are losing faith in the judiciary. It is gratifying that the Supreme Court took the initiative to prevent the erosion of credibility as soon as the corruption allegations related to the Delhi judge became news. But there are also less obvious ills that continue to tarnish that credibility. There is no doubt that the shift from the opacity in the deviation from the practice of naming the judge who authored the Ayodhya verdict to the transparency of uploading on the website footage of the Delhi judge's house being inspected is welcome. It would be good if these remedial efforts are not limited to an isolated case but move towards comprehensive measures to restore public trust.