Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia pointed out that the government took away powers under Section 24 of the Criminal Procedure Code, under which Public Prosecutors were appointed in consultation with the Chief Justices of the High Courts. “Why the power was taken away I don’t want to comment,” he said.
SH Kapadia said on Saturday ignoring section 24 of CrPC was affecting the quality of government pleaders. The section says the government must consult the judiciary in selecting prosecutors, who play a vital role in criminal dispensation.
Maintaining that there was a distinction between pendency and arrears of cases, Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia on Saturday indicated that he would soon appoint statistical experts to analyse different aspects of arrears so that a solution could be found.
Presiding over the national seminar on judicial reforms organised here by the Confederation of Indian Bar, Justice Kapadia said the arrears of cases must be understood in the true sense. He asserted that the current figure of three crore cases pending in various courts could not be considered arrears. Pointing out that 62 per cent of the cases were only one year old, he said “There is a distinction between pendency and arrears.”
The CJI said a special team of statistical officers would segregate cases on three fronts by classifying them as “sticky cases,” “subverted cases” and “process problem cases.” He called for use of modern technology to overcome the problems arising out of “process delay.”
Sticky cases were those which consumed considerable time, while subverted cases would be identified as those in which one of the parties tried to delay the proceedings and in the last category the delay occurred because of delay in issuing notice, etc. The CJI called for legislative, judicial and bar reforms saying that judicial reforms alone would not work. “You can’t have a chariot running on one wheel.”
What the ex IT deptt employee says is true about every profession or govt deptt even 3 decades ago. These qualities were waning since 1974-75, but were still present till 1980-81 to a very great extent. In 1990 or so, this was all extinct. So, it is no use shedding tears on spilled milk. It is the nation as a whole, all people of India, who gave full support to this total eclipse of all vestiges of values. No party in power, be it the Congress (in a coalition), or BJP (more corrupt) or the self-righteous but thoroughly corrupt (and justifying corruption on dialectics) Left, can and will even venture or have the courage to undo the damage. For, their very existence is based on this eclipse pf values in all spheres of life.
Sad, but true.
The concern of the Hon’ble CJI must be shared by the entire community of legal brotherhood-law administrators (criminal, civil, tax, viz., all branches of law), legal practitioners including chartered accountants, judiciary (including tribunals), students of law as well as those who suffer both due to the infirmities or mischief of law and also those harmed by miscarriage of justice. Understandably, reflecting the state degradation in the entire value pattern in the society as whole, the world of law as such cannot avoid the onslaught of the perverse but all-pervading destruction being caused by money power. But, still, in the very interest of the remnants of the human society, some efforts of the ruling elite is called for for ensuring and preserving , whatever is left, the principles of rule of law. Let the best available brains with reasonable levels of honesty rule the discipline of law.
His Lordship’s views must be considered as a mandate to the Central and the State Governments. As a retired employee of the Income Tax department, I recall the days even 30-40 years ago when even the authorised departmental representatives (senior and junior both) in the then income tax appellate tribunals used to be legal legal luminaries, experts in accounts and brilliant investigators, all rolled into one.
And, unlike later, a posting as an AR was a matter of prestige and recognition, with a very frugal “special pay”, and a certain indication of the officers’ promotion to next higher post.
There were many cases in those days of many officers working as departmental representatives for more than a decade and even then trying their best to remain in those posts. Hence, the juniors on promotion, on their own accord, would be happy to continue in the same job, only as seniors-a rank higher in hierarchy! And the appellate assistant commissioners in the department in those bygone days were simply legends-in all spheres-of law, accounts, investigation and, of course, jurisprudence. Now this is a place for officers under punishment, or some shadow of doubt about their integrity, or a place for “rather unwelcome” and honest beings, a rare species in the entire administration.
The members of the tribunal in those long lost days also were revered for their courageous and clear views on facts and law-having been selected from a cream of candidates. There used to be mutual respect between the representatives on either side of the aisle and the Bench-the departmental representatives no less treated and recognised as equally competent professionals like their enlisted “learned friends” in professions. And thus the quality and standard of the standing counsel used to be of unbelievable levels. There used to be an atmosphere of learning, respect, humility, informed arguments/debates, and love and quest for the correct decision in law. In the present situation of lack of respect as well as respectability, the manner of selection of counsel and their performance manifests the want of values characteristic of the current times.
And hence, we should be grateful for these words of his Lordship, the Hon’ble CJI. For people in their late sixties and above, his words tend to bring back a waft of sweet memories of the past-an austere but gracefully aristrocratic past.