The stand-off between the bjp-led NDA government and the Supreme Court over the former’s delay in appointing judges proposed by the apex court’s collegium, threatens to paralyse the country’s already sclerotic judicial system. On August 13, a bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice T.S. Thakur rebuked the Centre for bringing the entire judiciary to a “grinding halt” by sitting on the recommendations of the collegium. Currently, 478 judicial posts are vacant in various high courts countrywide (sanctioned strength: 1,079), and three in the Supreme Court.
This constitutionally dangerous impasse has its roots in an apex court verdict in which by a 4-1 majority, the Supreme Court struck down the 99th Constitution Amendment passed by Parliament, which had proposed a six-member strong National Judicial Accountability Commission (NJAC) comprising the chief justice and two senior most judges of the Supreme Court, the Union law minister (ex officio) and “two eminent persons” to appoint higher judiciary judges. The prime purpose of the pursuant NJAC Act, 2015, passed by both houses of Parliament in 2014, was to replace the collegium system of selection devised by the Supreme Court on the basis of its own judgements in three rulings (1981-98) known as the Three Judges Cases, under which a collegium comprising the chief justice and four senior judges of the Supreme Court, took it upon itself to appoint judges in consultation with the President (advised by the Union government).
The collegium system became operational in 1993 after the apex court’s judgement in the Second Judges Case. However, the BJP/NDA government questioned this schema on the ground that a judges-appointing-judges system is undesirable, and a broader consultation process involving the people’s representatives would best serve the public interest.
This unresolved stalemate has resulted in most high courts countrywide working with only 40 percent of their sanctioned judicial strength, while the backlog of cases gets longer. On August 12, 2016, 22.4 million cases were pending in various courts across the country — the world’s largest judicial backlog.
Though there’s an urgent need for the higher judiciary which has recently been rocked by charges of corruption and nepotism, to proactively improve the system of selecting, vetting and appointing judges, it’s also noteworthy that 34 percent of the country’s MPs and legislators are charged with serious criminal offences and are best kept out of the selection process.
Against this backdrop, the admittedly imperfect collegium system is the lesser evil. Moreover, the BJP-led NDA government needs to accept that a sufficiently well-staffed and efficient judiciary is a prerequisite of attracting foreign (and domestic) investment, and exhibit urgency in accepting the collegium system. Further delay in resolving this dispute could bring the wheels of the justice system — already moving with painful sloth — to a complete stop.
School Education Neglect Fallout
Once upon a time not so long ago, it was the garden city of India. Over the past two decades as Bangalore’s population has grown from 4.74 million in 1995 to 8.42 million in 2015 and almost coterminously with the city being renamed Bengaluru by populist rustic politicians, the garden city has morphed into garbage city. And latterly, particularly after the Cauvery water riots and breakdown of law and order on September 13, this would-be metropolis and administrative capital of the southern state of Karnataka (pop. 64 million), which proclaims itself as the Silicon Valley of India, has deteriorated into the mythical Gotham city, a byword for crime, corruption and civic anarchy. One denouement is certain: on September 13, the city and state’s self-image as a favoured destination of foreign and Indian investors has received a crippling body blow.
The scale of actual physical damage inflicted upon the city’s tax-paying, law-abiding citizens by frenzied mobs following the state government’s abject failure to maintain law and order, is mind-boggling. Forty-four private motor cars severely damaged; 78 omnibuses burnt to cinders including 55 of a private company (KPN Motors) and six buildings damaged. According to the Bangalore chapter of Assocham, the loss incurred by the state’s economy on September 13-14 (the latter was a public holiday) in terms of loss of output aggregated Rs.20,000 crore.
An analysis of how this city, which right until the early years of the new millennium enjoyed a global reputation for good civic governance, law and order and excellent work ethic of its population, has spiralled downwards into anarchy, is a precondition of restoration and repair. For one, unchecked corruption by BJP, Congress and Janata Dal governments of the state has corroded the law, order and justice systems, enabling the rise of a grubby politician-builder nexus which has thrown civic planning and governance norms to the winds. And with the under-educated political class innocent of the basics of balanced regional development, inhabitants of neglected rural Karnataka have poured into Bangalore in search of employment, a phenomenon which has greatly strained the city’s archaic municipal corporation.
The first step towards checking the city’s tailspin is to implement the 74th Amendment of the Constitution which devolves substantial powers of civic taxation and governance on local governments. Secondly, the state government needs to urgently slash its huge wasteful expenditure to free resources for deployment into the state’s law, order and justice delivery machinery. But perhaps even more important is larger investment in public education. Ignorance of the significance of the rule of law and the patent contempt that Karnataka’s rioting mobs exhibited towards the law is an indictment of the state’s failed — and falling — public primary-secondary education system.