New Delhi: In order to restore flagging public confidence and credibility in the judiciary with respect to perceived arbitrariness in listing and bench allocation, members of the Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms (CAJR) at a seminar in collaboration with The Wire and LiveLaw, came up with a list of resolutions on Saturday.
The seminar, which was held in New Delhi, was conducted in the backdrop of recent events in which fundamental rights, democratic institutions and indeed democracy itself has come under increasing attack where the judiciary’s response has been found to be wanting.
The resolutions adopted at the end of the day-long seminar said that the chief justice of India as the master of the roster gives “unfettered and unquestioned absolute powers to one individual and is not in keeping with settled principles of democracy as it lacks transparency, participation and accountability, and is subject to misuse”.
The resolution said that the power, and duty, of master of roster must be exercised collectively by the 3-5 senior most judges including the CJI and that criteria of bench selection must include area of specialisation and experience in such matters.
In addition, to bring in more transparency it said that cases must be allocated to benches solely on the basis of automatic computer allocation within the prepared and published roster.
“Any instruction given to the system for allocating cases should be publicly disclosed. Non discretionary powers to be given to the Chief Justce or the Filing Counter to bypass the computer-based allocation system.”
“It also called for a return to the earlier procedure for mentioning urgent matters which were mentioned in open court before the Chief Justce of India or the senior most bench on the judicial side available, “to enable judicial orders to be passed for listing that bind the Registry to follow these orders.”
It also said that cases pertaining to personal liberty and fundamental constitutional principles, especially for bail in pre-trial arrests and habeas corpus petitions, must be taken up promptly and “heard without any delay or unnecessary adjournment”.
It also called for the Supreme Court to stop granting stays on interim bails granted by lower courts.
“Such restrictive orders strip away basic liberty rights by placing unconstitutional and unjust barriers to fundamental rights, constitutional guarantees and civil liberties.”
It also called upon the Supreme Court to urgently examine restrictive conditions of bail in draconian laws and strike them down or read them down.
“The principles of speedy trial and bail and not jail, must be restored as settled jurisprudence. Executive violations must be immediately addressed and nipped in the bud, to ensure accountability,” it said.
It also called for the Supreme Court to publish settled judicial and legal principles that uphold people’s rights, personal liberty and fundamental constitutional principles without diluting them and passing orders and judgments inconsistent with them.
The first session of the seminar was titled ‘Supreme Court Judicial Administration & Management – Issues and Concerns’.
The speakers included Justices Madan Lokur and Kurien Joseph, former judges of the Supreme Court; Justice Rekha Sharma, former judge, Delhi high court; Justice Govind Mathur, former Chief Justice, Allahabad high court; Kamini Jaiswal, advocate, Supreme Court; senior advocate Meenakshi Arora; advocate Gautam Bhatia; and Prashant Bhushan, Advocate and convenor, CJAR.
The second session was titled ‘The Supreme Court’s recent trend on cases involving Civil Liberties and Political Rights’ and included speakers Justice A.K. Patnaik, former judges of the Supreme Court; professor Mohan Gopal, former director, National Judicial Academy; senior advocates Trideep Pais, Kapil Sibal, Mihir Desai; and Warisha Farasat, advocate, Delhi high court and Supreme Court.