It is rare for conflicts within the apex judiciary of any country to emerge out into the open, but four judges of the Indian Supreme Court criticised the Chief Justice for the way he was managing the affairs of the apex court, his distribution of cases and their concerns about judicial appointments. Their very public stance is unprecedented and potentially has far reaching repercussions. The four rank immediately below the CJ, Dipak Misra, and a single sentence sums up their concern “…that unless this institution is preserved and it maintains its equanimity, democracy will not survive in this country.” SC judges do not make that kind of statement unless they have some serious concerns about the institution they represent.
At the heart of the matter appears to be their exclusion from the setting of procedures used to hire and promote judges in all of the courts in the land, plus concerns about the allocation of the hearing of a case which is not specified but is related to a case being heard by a lower court judge who died in 2014 during the proceedings. The case was sensitive as it concerned Amit Shah, the president of the Bharatiya Janata Party, who was accused of ordering extra-judicial killings when he was serving as home minister of Gujarat under now Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Shah has been acquitted of the charges subsequently, and the Supreme Court is currently hearing a plea that there be an investigation into the death of the judge who was hearing the case against Shah when he died.
It would appear that the four judges have concerns that are indeed grave and do indeed begin to swing the needle of the compass in the direction of Mr Modi. Some Supreme Court lawyers have praised their actions whilst others have said that rifts in the apex judiciary should not be in the public domain. The four were asked if the CJ should be impeached and were told “That’s for the nation to decide”. We watch with interest.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 15th, 2018.
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