Judicial Accountability

Small student bodies and skeletal faculties are governed by Vice Chancellors wielding powers built for universities many times their size, while Chief Justices sit as Chancellors over institutions whose disputes eventually reach their own courtrooms.

The Collegium has criticised the Centre for delaying appointments and departing from procedure, yet its own record on both counts is no better.

From the Constitution’s unkept promise to have a jurist as SC judge to the empowering value of legal education to ask questions, Justice Bhuyan’s speech acts as breath of fresh air for the citizens.

The appointments, made on Collegium recommendations, include Justice Sanjay K. Agarwal as Chief Justice of the Rajasthan High Court amid the ongoing controversy over Acting Chief Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma, and bring the number of High Courts headed by judges from the Allahabad High Court to five.

The Supreme Court’s ruling in Bhumika Trust, which dilutes the three-year Bar practice rule with a new training-clerkship regime, overestimates institutional readiness, introduces an additional layer of uncertainty and subjective assessment for judicial aspirants, sidelines litigant interests, and further erodes the autonomy of High Courts and states over judicial recruitment.

In an unusual move, the Collegium made two separate recommendations for Justice Agarwal, one to transfer him and another to appoint him Chief Justice of Rajasthan High Court, amid the row over Acting Chief Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma, even as it named new Chief Justices for the Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Courts.

The recommendation to appoint Justice Sanjay K. Agrawal as Chief Justice comes days after lawyers went on strike demanding the removal of Acting Chief Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma, following allegations by Supreme Court judge Justice Sandeep Mehta of case-listing manipulation and intimidation of judicial officers.

At the 28th D.S. Borker Memorial Lecture, Justice S. Muralidhar traced India’s judicial pendency crisis to dead cases clogging the docket, an opaque collegium, and a State that drives citizens to court while Senior Advocate Indira Jaising warned of a ‘shadow system’ undermining the Constitution.