With the neta-babu brotherhood running amok in all institutions of governance and learning, the judiciary — the last bulwark against the runaway philistinism of this acquisitive class wrecking the nation — is also crumbling. Not that the judiciary was ever a shining example of efficiency and equity. With the law’s agonising delay, obsolete civil and criminal law procedures, conspicuous absence of a legal aid system and the laws of contract and tort almost dead letters, post-independence India’s legal system fashioned by rapacious lawyers, ivory tower Supreme and high court judges and a venal lower judiciary, has never been anything to write home about. Nevertheless from time to time, learned judges of the upper judiciary deliver epochal judgements and verdicts which protect the constitutional rights and liberties of citizens.
Now this edifice is tottering. The Supreme Court is a house divided with four of the five senior most judges of the collegium, which uniquely appoints apex and high court judges across the country, having called a press conference to complain that the Chief Justice of India has been bypassing them and assigning important cases to relatively junior judges of the 25-strong apex court. Moreover, Chief Justice Dipak Misra has raised eyebrows in the legal fraternity by presiding over a three-judge bench which rather hastily dismissed a petition filed in the apex court requesting a judicial inquiry into the mysterious death of Justice B.H. Loya. Yet, there is no evidence that their lordships of the bench and greedy lawyers of the bar are ready to snap out of their inertia and initiate overdue reforms to strengthen the system.
Over four decades ago, your editor began his professional career as a barrister of the Bombay high court. But after suffering four years of time-agnostic judges and money-obsessed lawyers focused on legal nit-picking rather than justice, I trashed my gown and bands. I’ve never regretted that decision despite learning that my erstwhile chamber colleagues are multi-millionaires. Getting rich working in a garbage dump of misery and iniquity was — and remains — an unappealing proposition.