Katju's collegium can of worms: Why not fix a system that is broken?

Former Supreme Court justice Markandey Katju who has been on a one-man bid to expose corruption in the judiciary struck again yesterday, by authoring two blogs within a span of 24 hours in which he sought not only to highlight corruption in the high seats of judiciary but also expressed disappointment over the alleged reluctance from the highest judicial authority to take firm action. In the first of his blog posts  Katju wrote that then CJI Kapadia had not taken action against a Judge in Allahabad, despite finding through phone taps, that he was corrupt: [caption id=“attachment_1659795” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Supreme Court of India. Reuters[/caption] Katju’s argument is that corruption is rampant and even well-known but, “most Chief Justices of India are reluctant to expose corruption in the judiciary thinking that this will defame the judiciary, and so they prefer to bury corruption under the carpet..”. The former Supreme Court judge’s spate of expose through his blogs has even managed to shaken up his ex-colleagues and juniors so that today Chief Justice of India RM Lodha , after dismissing a plea challenging the collegium system, said that there is a concerted campaign to defame judiciary and bring it to disrepute in the public eye. “Don’t shake the confidence of the people in judiciary,” he said. “Collegium system has not failed.” Whatever may be the objective of Katju’s blogs, the series of exposes has made everyone sit up and take notice, given that they come from a former insider. “I believe he should have written a long blog saying everything together. Why is he saying it in bits and pieces? Why is he also stopping short of naming the judges? When there is a criticism of the inadequacies in the collegium system, it is an aim to get the best appointments in the judiciary by pointing out the flaws. Criticism of the collegium system is not a criticism of the judges per se. Judiciary should not be hyper sensitive,” former additional solicitor-general R Ramachandran told CNN-IBN during a debate. BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Mittal, who participated in the debate, expressed surprise as to how the judiciary can consider itself above the law. “There is little doubt that there is corruption in the judiciary. I don’t understand if an individual is a jurist why he or she cannot be tried under the Prevention of Corruption Act. What is so sacrosanct about them? Where is the equality before law? A status quo to the current system is not correct. If the system has a problem then there must be changes,” Mittal said. The BJP spokesperson’s comment assumes significance as the Centre which is keen to scrap the collegium system , introduced a Constitution Amendment Bill in the Lok Sabha to establish a six-member body for the appointment of judges to the Supreme Court and the high courts. Besides the Constitutional Amendment Bill, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad also introduced an enabling bill – the National Judicial Appointments Commission Bill, 2014. Another representative form the judicial fraternity, former additional solicitor-general B Bhattacharya did not agree that the collegium system needs to be changed. “As of now I feel the remedy that we are seeking to achieve is far worse then the aberrations we have. The government of India is the biggest litigant in the country. The very fact that the Intelligence Bureau recorded phone calls of the judge of the Allahabad High Court as mentioned by justice Katju in his blog means either the prime minister or the home minister knew about it. But unfortunately only the Chief Justice of India is getting the bashing. This is a concerted attempt to of the executive, legislature and the politicians to snatch away power from the judiciary. They are actually scared of the judiciary,” Bhattacharya said. However, CNN-IBN, legal editor, Ashok Bagriya felt that the sanctity of the judiciary must be maintained at any cost. “Justice RM Lodha made a very strong statement today. Whether we have A or B system, the judiciary should not be compromised. We have to get into the whole spectrum of corruption and deal with it once and for all,” Bagriya said.