Dear All,
The following appeared in "Times of India", Mumbai Edition on February 06,2009, page no. 01.
May be useful for future references, to prove the corruption and moral-less incompetence in the lower courts.
The SC ought to have a vigilance department, district-wise to investigate randomly on su-moto basis over the corruption and out-of-the-way disposal / manipulation of the cases in lower courts.
The SC reaction is only a LIP - SERVICE, which as usual will be forgotten, by the time you finish reading this.
Keep Smiling ... HemantAgarwal
09820174108
Lower judiciary is rotting: SC
New Delhi: The supreme court on Thursday sounded the grim warning that the criminal justice system had been subverted, with witnesses being manipulated and trials being hijacked with judges and lawyers remaining “handicapped witnesses’’.
Making the chilling observation, which to many only confirmed the widely held perception of the erosion of the system, a bench comprising Justices B N Agrawal, G S Singhvi and Aftab Alam also said that the lower judiciary had decayed.
“The courts of magistrate and munsif have ceased to be an option for the common man,’’ the bench said and compared the lower courts to ill-equipped and ill-staffed public health centres (PHCs) in rural areas. “Only those people go there who have no other option,’’ said the bench as an apparent indicator of the low measure of public faith in these courts, which are the first points of dispute settlement for the masses.
The comment, perhaps the sharpest ever from the apex court on the health of the country’s judicial administration system, came in a case arising from the appeal filed by two senior advocates—R K Anand and I U Khan—against the Delhi high court’s order hauling them up for criminal contempt for influencing a key witness in a hit-and-run case.
The high court’s action against the two advocates was based on a sting operation.
SC judges throw up their hands
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday woke up to the rot in the judiciary system and said that a large number of trials have been hijacked and manipulated by defence lawyers. It was senior advocate Harish Salve who provided the trigger for the candid comments from the bench.
The advocate said that while it might be fine to fault the journalists involved in the sting operation for the methods they used to record the conversation between the two advocates and the witness, what was really important was that their action had driven home the fact that “the criminal justice system faced a serious challenge from such activity’’.
Salve’s opening provided the perfect vent for the bench to pour out its anguish. “Over the years, the fact remains that a large number of trials have been hijacked by manipulation. The accused have succeeded in manipulating the witnesses. In the system in which we are involved, the judges and lawyers have remained handicapped witnesses,’’ the bench said.
The bench’s expression of helplessness with regard to the apparent pervasiveness of the problem in the criminal justice system took on a more serious dimension as the judges expressed serious doubts about the competence of the lower judiciary and waning public faith in it.
Coming to the BMW hit-and-run case and the involvement of two well-known lawyers—defence counsel Anand and public prosecutor Khan—and the manner in which they allegedly manipulated the witness, the bench said, “What happened in this case is the tip of the iceberg. This is a case of accident. We have seen cases involving smuggling of arms, RDX, narcotics where the accused get away. But we are helpless.’’
Salve said not only in the judicial system, there was also a general tendency in all quarters to disregard the majesty of law and the judgments passed by the judiciary. “The SC has repeatedly told the lawyer community not to go on strike. But we do not seem to care. The SC has told the police not to handcuff accused, but they have scant regard for it. The single directive principle protecting bureaucrats has been struck down repeatedly, but it still holds good. SC has ordered police reforms, but few states have implemented it,’’ he said.
“I belong to a fraternity which has a lot to answer to society,’’ the leading lawyer told the bench in response to its caustic comments on the obnoxious manipulations happening in trials.
