A letter, written on 31/01/2017, to the new CJI, J S Kehar, on judicial reforms.

1. P M Ravindran
2l L8,' Aathira', Sivapuri, Kalpathy-678003
Tele : 049 1 - 251 60 42; E-mai l : raviforj ustice@gmail. com
Fi Ie : Pers/j ud-cji jsk-reforms-3 101 17
Mr J S Kehar,
3L Jan 2OL7
Please permit me to introduce myself as one amoung a billion plus, to be precise one
amoung the 99 percent of our population, living with the frustrating and disgusting
realisation that it is futile to even seek justice in this country! That our judiciary is an
absolute failure by the fundamental concept of justice delayed is justice denied is a fact that
even you cannot deny. And then when it comes to whetting the decisions on the touch
stone of the principle that justice should not only be done but seen to be done it wiil have
to be admitted that our judiciary is in fact a realthreat to rule of law itself.
:{
Before I proceed further let me place on record three actions taken by you that gives one
the hope that all is not lost yet.
The first one is your decision to introduce additional benches for the summer vacation. lt is
indeed the first step of a long'journey that is required to finally get the judiciary to work like
any other institution of governance!
The next is to do away with (gender) biases while deciding cases. Here the question arises :
will you be able to rewrite the laws themselves. I invite your attention to the following
decisions of the Kerala High Court:JancyJoseph Vs Union of lndia (1999 (1) KLT 422) and
Mary Chacko vs Jancy Joseph (2005 (3) KLT 925) which have dealt with the applicability of
Sec 56 of CPC to Sec 27 of Consumer Protection Act. The injustice should be obvious to
anyone who has any sense of justicel To put it bluntly one might ask where is it written that
individuals can be denied justice?
The third is your direction to take up cases on a first come first served basis.
At this point of time I can't also forget that you headed the bench that quashed the National
JudicialAppointments Commission Act, on the ground that it was unconstitutional. I must
say that it was an absolutely unconstitutional and illegaljudgement. Those of us who have
been observing the introduction and consolidation of the colleglum system know only too
well how the judiciary took advantage of minority governments at the centre to perpetrate
this unconstitutional system. But for a layman like me this legislation or its quashing did not
make any difference. The cr:edibility of the executive in the matter of appointments to
various quasijudicial bodies fiom National Human Rights Commission to state information
commissions and the various ombudsmen leave much to be desired. Having said that, the
need for the more seriouly important and.urgent National Judicial Accountability
Commission which can try complaints against the omissions and commissions of judges as
per ordinary laws applicable to ordinary citizens cannot be over emphasised.
The apex court decisions in Jayakrishnan Master murder case and the more recent Soumya
murder case sends shivers down one's spine due to the grossness of the injustice
perpetrated! ln the former, where a schoolteach.er in Kerala was murdered in front of the
students of his primary class, five or six persons were convicted and sentenced to death by
the trialcourt. lt was uphled bythe Kerala High Court too. The apex court acquitted all of
them except one, whose sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. But even this

2. convict was soon walking free, only to be accused in another murder case and arrestedl
lnterestingly this person made a revelation through the media: that is, all those who had
been let off by the apex court in the earlier case had actually been framed by the police! His
revelation notwithstanding, the fact remains that it was a mob that attacked and killed the
teacher in broad daylight in his class room, in front of his studentsl Then how is it that the
police failed to nab the real murderers and successfully got innocent men convicted? And
why did even the apex court failto pursue the case to its logical end not onlyto punish the
other members of the gang involved in the murder but also punish the cops involved in
framing innocents? And what about compensating those who had suffered the long years of
agony in custody and pursuing the case till being acquitted?
Talking of framing innocents, there is this case of a top scientist, Nambi Narayanan, of ISRO
who was framed in what is known as the ISRO spy case. He not only lost his job buthad to
suffertorture and all other agonises connected with pursuing justice in this country. The
apex court acquitted him too and he has been fighting for a compensation of a merE Rs L
crore for the last decade plus. And compare it with the expeditious manner in whid a
former apex court judge was awarded a compensation of Rs 100 crores for a media
inadvertantly telecasting his photo for a minute or less while reporting a crime involving
another judge with a similar sounding name !
This narrative would be endless. But suffice to say that court decisions that uphold the
principle of justice not only being done but seen to be done are becoming rarer bythe day,
if not missing altogether.
I wouldn't waste my time reproducing whatever I have been writing about the need for
judicial reforms for the last decade and a half. But some of these have been posted as blogs
and you may 8o through them if you are interested. Of particular relevance would be:
ndran@redi l.com&session Id=lKLKSKxeswi
Reforming our justice delivery system at
http://raytforiustice.blogspot.com/ZOtt/02/reformins-our-iustice-deliverv-svstem.html
who will judge the judges? at http://raviforiustice.bloespot.com/2011/03/who-wiil-iudee-
iudees.htiTl i'
Parliamentary Standing Committee on Judicial Reforms at
http://raviforiustice. b logspot.c om /201,1/03lparlia m enta rv-sta n d in e-co m m ittee-on. htm I
Justice Delivery System- FAQs at
http://raviforiustice. blosspot.com/2011/02liustice-deliverv-svstem-faqs. h-tm I
lndian judiciary-who said what at
ls the judiciary taking citizens for a ride? at http://bloss.rediff.com/scripts/blog form-
hVDU&bloeld=1043020674
Report of the NCRWC- a Citizens Review at
Access to Justice-A Stake holder's Report
http ://ravifori ustice. b access-to'i ustice-

3. Democracy? East is East and West is West at http://www.articlesbase.com/politics-
a rticles/democracveast-is-east-an d-west-is-west-4287828. htm I
The (Late) RTI Act at http://rithica20l6.bloespot.inl2016/10/the-rti-act-is-dead.html
And there are more...
To cut this communication short, here ere a few things which the judiciary must do urgently
before it becomes irrelevant and throws the nation into a civil war like situation:
L. Ensure timely disposal of cases.
1.1,. For this the first requirement if of course having competent judges. fhis will
involve specialisation in subject specific laws. Though this is the principld'
underlying the constitution of various tribunals and commissions, in practice
their performance have been worse than regular courts.
L.2. Even though the number of adjournments that can be giyen is specifed even
in the Cons'umer Protection Act, they are all violated with impunity. Just to give
an exam.ple, in OP 282/99 of Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Palakkad (OP
No 85/95 transferred from Malappuram), the opposite party had produced
interim stay order on28/1.0/99 from the Kerala High Court and the stay was
vacated only on 8/6/2005 but through out this period the case was listed 58
times and adjourned! lt was finally posted for orders on 6/7/07 but was opened
for re-hearing suo moto on 15l2lOB and went on an adjournment spree from
3l3l}8to3Ll5l2O10. During this spree it was adjourned 17 times, including 5
times for want of members/President and 10 times for orders only! lt was
dismissed when an application was submitted under the RTI Act to find out the
status I
1.3. The next is limiting the number of cases listed for hearing to pragmatic levels
and ensuring that all the listed cases are heard and progressed to some
meaningful extent. ln lower courts more than a hundred cases are listed per day
when actual hearings are conducted only in less than dozen. Most of the few
working hours of the court is wasted in 'mustering'onlyl
1.4. Cut out the holidays enjoyed by the judiciary exclusively. ln fact there is a
need for lower courts to work round the clock like police stations.
Ensurejusticeisdoneineverycase. ltisimportantnotonlyforjusticetobedone
but for justice to be seen to be done. Unfortunately what we find is the opposite.
Whether it is the final decision in Jayakrishnan master murder case, Soumya murder
case orthe cases involving celebrities like Salman Khan there are many questions
that create doubts about the credibility, reliabiltiy and intergrity of the judiciary.
Ensure transparency in the processes and functioning of the courts. ln fact it is
obnoxious that some cases linger on for decades when some, of the same category,
are disposed off in a jiffy. List of cases under specific charges should be updated
atleast once in a quarter, progress evaluated and re-prioratised, if necessary.
Coming to transparency, it has to be noted that the claim of the then CJl, K G
. Balakrishnan,thathisofficedidnotfall underthepurviewoftheRTlActhadtaken
the credibility, reliabiltiy and intergrity of the judiciary to new depths.
3.

4. The so called independence of the judiciary is myth. Atreast one judge, who was
appointed as Lokayukta of Gujarat, refused to accept tr,e appoinil; ii,|; that ir
would be impossible for him to perform his duties when the ,executive,
was not co-
operative!we all know how it is a system of ,rscratch
your back, you scratch my
back'that is the working moder in our system of government. Rn
j ,r,.a i, *6, in
spite of scams worth lakhs of crores surfacing nobody worth the name has been
punished so far everl
The totat failure of the judiciary has led to a situation where everybody who is
anybody in government or criminals with money or muscle power tend to drive
every honest, hard working and simple citizen to the judiciary where they can simply
'rest'their cases and wait for the good Lord of Death to embrace theml The need
here is for even public servants to be treated as independent litigants and,made to
s.uffer the court processes and punished for failure to successfully prosecuie/defend
their cases. A system of rewards for successfury prosecuting/defending cases
involving public interest should be introduced to provide incentive for horrbst public
servants' (Please note that in the RTI Act, the penalty is imposed on the delinquent
public information officer as an individual and it has been clarifed by atleast some
high courts that if the penalised Plo has to Bo on appeal he has to do so at his own
expensel Unfortunatleythe apex court has not reiterated it and hence it has not
been implemented a[the national levell)
The RTI Act also reminds one of ,how even the simplest of laws, absolutely clear and
unambiguous, are voitated with impunity and that too by the very authorities
appointed to enforce it. rt has been reported in the media (,Morethan 60 per cent
CIC orders flawed: study at http://www.dnaindia.c
)that60p.orJ"fficommissioners are flawed. As an activist in this area I knowthat 100 pc of the orders
of the information commissioners at the central lnformation commission and Kerala
State lnformation commission are flawed. ln fact the task of an information
commissioner is simpler than that of a munsif in our courts. But these
commissioners who have been given the status and remun.rrii* oi cr,'ur Election
commissioner/ Election commissionerf chief secretary have;ii;rirrrj"*i'.n"
law they have been tasked, equipped and empowered to
"ntor...
ri onrv tr.,u iu.r.'touted rule of law actually prevailed in this country each of them could be
successfully prosecuted under Sec 2L9 of the lpC,and would be marking their time in
pr:ison for a good 7 yearsl And to be sure there are enough right thinking citizens in
this country still who wourd haut them up before our courts if onry they had the
confidence they would get justice within their life time .
The above list is by no means exhaustive. But it should be sufficient to make one think
where all you can intervene and help improve the situation. And this, I must say, is the
purpose of this communication to you.
Yours sincerely,
Sri J S Kehar
4.
5.
CJl, Supreme Couit of lndia
New Delhi