NEW DELHI: Leading lawyers Harish Salve and Mahesh Jethmalani Monday advocated a reset in the judiciary, as happened after the Emergency, and said the complaint redressal mechanism needs to be reformed for the public to continue reposing faith in the institution.Referring to the unprecedented discovery of burning cash at Justice Yashwant Varma’s residence in March last year, Jethmalani asked why an FIR was not registered given that the judge had repeatedly moved the SC seeking the quashing of the inquiry.Jethmalani said there is a dire need for the infusion of transparency in the working of the judiciary. Salve asked if a minister would have escaped an FIR if such an incident had happened at their residence. What would have been the judiciary’s response to a PIL on such an incident being reported from the residence of a person who was not part of the judiciary.CJI Surya Kant, responding to the queries at the Ram Jethmalani Memorial Lecture, said the internal mechanism to deal with complaints against judges is robust, responsive, and expeditious.“No doubt every system and mechanism can be improved. But I can assure you that the internal mechanism to deal with complaints against judges has been adequate,” he said.CJI Kant said most of the complaints against judges are filed by disgruntled litigants after suffering a reversal in court.“Would it be proper to adjudicate these complaints in the public domain? If so done, what happens to the judges and the judiciary?” the chief justice asked.Salve said the courts must stick to their field: the law.“When they deviate from that, the results have been devastating. Court-monitored investigations are a myth. What happened in the 2G spectrum allocation scam, coal block allocation scam, and Hawala scam cases, investigations into which were monitored by courts? When the court monitors an investigation, the investigating agency loses its independence and feels obliged to deliver results, and that is when things get skewed,” Salve said.
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He said a strong judiciary is welcome. “When it is strong at a time when govt is weak, everyone applauds it for raising questions. But when there is a strong govt, the public judges the judiciary on how often it raises questions before the govt. It is then that the balance between the three organs gets disturbed,” he said.Jethmalani criticised the opaqueness in the appointments and transfers of judges in constitutional courts and said the area needs reforms to allay apprehensions of favouritism and nepotism.CJI Kant said the collegium system has evolved over the years, and the smooth manner in which the appointments and transfers take place in consultations with govt shows that there is little reason to doubt its efficacy.
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