The Indian Judges are too Pampered a lot:Lalit k kaul

The Indian Judges are too Pampered a lot                                                                                                                                                                                                      Lalit K Kaul

The Indian judges have been made to believe that they are beyond reproach and therefore they can getaway with anything and everything they do.

The judges have come to occupy the place in Indian society that catapults them to a position that's above law of the land; the ones who are bestowed with the quantum of wisdom and knowledge that no other mortal can ever have; for a population of more than 130 crores, only a handful, the judges, can think rightly, logically and rationally on all matters concerning human life, society and endeavour.

The Provision of Contempt of Court:

This is one impenetrable shield that restrains even an advocate in a court to put his/her point across emphatically to a judge even while being guided by various clauses and sub-clauses of the law as appropriate to the case in question in the court; comes the response from the judge, “You may be in contempt of the court” and such responses come from such judges who might have prejudged the case due to certain “pressures". The mightier, resourceful and powerful the respondent, more the chances of invoking the contempt clause to abort the arguments of the petitioner.  Obviously, the petitioner approaches the higher courts, but is unfortunate to have a formidable respondent.

Non-Declaration of Assets: Fundamental Right of Judges:

 In the 1997, a full-court meeting of the Supreme Court resolved:

“…every Judge should make a declaration of all his/her assets in the form of real estate or investments (held by him/her in his/her own name or in the name of his/her spouse or any person dependent on him/her) within a reasonable time of assuming office and in the case of sitting Judges within a reasonable time of adoption of this Resolution and thereafter whenever any acquisition of a substantial nature is made, it shall be disclosed within a reasonable time.”

In its judgment on the Right to Information Act on November 13, 2019, the Supreme Court’s constitution bench has conveniently ignored Justice Ravindra Bhat’s reasoned conclusion about the binding nature of Resolution 1997 to voluntarily disclose judges’ asset statements to the chief justice of India. While Justice Bhat held that office of the CJI was a public authority distinct from the Supreme Court, the apex court rejected this, saying the CJI was an integral part of the Supreme Court as a public authority.

Whatever be the niceties/intricacies of the legal language that's generally indecipherable by general public, the gist of the quoted judgement is that while the judges may make wealth (property) by whatsoever means, they are not obliged to disclose it; while an ordinary clerk / officer in a government service and an employee in a public sector undertaking are obliged to disclose their assets on an yearly basis and if they fail to do so, it's bound to affect their career growth or may even call for initiating disciplinary committee proceedings against the non-complaint one.

Why this special treatment? Why the government doesn't insist that judges file their respective property returns? The reasons are quite obvious to a discerning mind.

Courts violate Law of the Land:

The Arbitration and Reconciliation Act, 1996 doesn't allow intervention by any court while the arbitration proceedings are going on. No party engaged in the tribunal over a mutual dispute can be entertained by any court, whatever be the complaints/grievances accumulated by a party against the proceedings of the tribunal. While the tribunal goes ahead with its job, a party may get its objections/grievances recorded in the minutes of daily proceedings and after the tribunal has made the award, the aggrieved party may approach appropriate court for redressal.  The Sec. 5 of the Act says:

Extent of Judicial Intervention (5):

Notwithstanding anything contained in any other law for the time being in force, in matters governed by this Part, no judicial authority shall intervene except where so provided in this Part.

The above excludes intervention when tribunal proceedings are going on, on the basis of a complaint filed by one of the parties.

Yet, courts do intervene to the extent that the tribunal goes into a state of Coma. The tribunals were constituted to unburden courts of the cases that involve disputes, between the two parties, over property or over non-compliance of the contract agreement by one of the parties and thus Arbitration Tribunals were constituted under the Act to decide upon such cases without causing unnecessary delays. But it was not to be!

And now social media is sought to be restrained:

That was superb job by the judge of a SC bench in that whatever emotional/pre-programmed speech/sermon he delivered in his court was not only out of context, but also beyond his jurisdiction. His job as a member of the bench was to either allow or dismiss the appeal of Ms. Nupur Sharma that sought transfer of all the FIRs against her to Delhi and there was precedence set by the SC itself in the case of Mr. Arnob Goswami. At the same time he had no words to reprimand those who had belittled and ridiculed Hindu Gods. The judge in his pre-programmed sermon forgot that Ms. Nupur Sharma had only responded to the indiscreet behaviour of a capped bearded person on a TV channel and that Ms. Nupur Sharma’s response was undeniably factual that didn't bring disrepute to anyone.

However, the judge in all his fancied wisdom has ensured life threat to Ms. Nupur Sharma and the SC bench should be held responsible if anything untoward happens to the lady and her family.

Perhaps the judge expected words of praise from ordinary mortals with lot of commonsense, but was disappointed. Of course, those who behead in the name of their God and religion, they are all praise for him and he is bound to win parliamentary elections from a constituency where such sick minds are in a majority.

Having been disappointed by the sane Indian populace, the judge wants GOI to bring out a law that puts checks on social media and thereby snatch from the people their fundamental right to express their opinion for such an outrageous act as that of this judge of the SC.

So, by implication, the judges are above Constitution of India; because law is sought to be brought in that strangles freedom of expression/opinion/thought! That's arrogance unlimited.

No Surprise:

I, for one, wouldn't be surprised if the incumbent Modiji's government obliges the judge in question and brings in a legislation to curtail freedom of speech/expression that every civilized society avail and loves to have, because if it could suspend Ms. Nupur Sharma for responding factually to a maniac without any words of reprimand for the maniac; no FIR against the maniac, it can go to any extent to fulfill conditions of vote bank politics.

Doing business with Arabs and Muslim nations may be an imperative, but Hindu faith cannot be allowed to be ridiculed by anybody in the world – be it a judge, a maniac, any Muslim nation; because Hindus don't ridicule any other religion.

Let it be for us, the Hindus, to decide on how to respond to such maniacs, if they repeat their uncivilized acts by word of mouth and/or by physical action, because neither the government nor the judiciary is going to come to our rescue. Hindus need to wake up from their deep slumber unless they are willing to be ruled by Sharia, in decades to come.