Column

India’s jurisprudence and procedures involved in the dispensation of criminal and civil law suits are solely based on the model left behind by the British 61 years ago.

In all these decades, India hasn’t taken a re-look at the statues and procedures. Over the years, there have been allegations of corruption within the judiciary. But this is not the only reason why the number of people complaining of losing their faith in the judicial system keeps growing by the years. It’s also the mounting backlog of cases which are to be held responsible. At the end of 2008, there were about 2.52 crore cases piled up. The reason: The government and top judiciary blame each other for the inertia in clearing the files.

The judiciary has wrested the power to fill up the posts of judges in the high courts and the Supreme Court, but there are a few hundred posts of HC judges vacant. Moreover, there are frequent exchanges between the political executive and judiciary on the controversial mode of selection of judges for the subordinate and constitutional courts.

The legal community has expressed concerns about bringing in transparency and accountability in the judiciary and in the procedure of appointments. However, there’s no immediate solution in sight.

A parliamentary committee headed by EMS Natchiappan recently suggested that initially state judicial services could be set up so that these can further blossom into National Judicial Service for all National and Regional Tribunal Chairmen and Member appointments of various discipline.

The committee also asked the law ministry to consider bringing about an amendment in the Constitution to set up the judicial service. It’s high time the law ministry and the parliamentary penal examined the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) set up by British government in April 2001.

JAC is headed by an Indian born UK citizen baroness Usha Prashar. Prashar has identified five core qualities required in a judicial appointee.“For the first time in its 1,000-year history, the judiciary is fully and officially independent of the government. This has been described as the most significant change since the Magna Carta in 1215,” she said.

But why was the change needed? The current lord chancellor, lord Falconer of Thoroton said: “In a modern democratic society, it is no longer acceptable for judicial appointments to be entirely in the hands of a government minister.”

JAC makes around 500-700 appointments in a year to vacancies throughout England and Wales. The posts are advertised along with the required qualification.