Litigants and appellants, who are court regulars, know many ugly
inside truths about judges. They know about courtroom politics,
malpractices, habits and biases of judges, and the channels through
which they are routinely approached for corruption. On a conservative
estimate, there are a hundred persons in every court who are potentially
whistle-blowers.
What prevents these people from actually blowing the whistle? Most of them are keeping quiet because they don't want to jeopardize their own cases.
These are the people with perfect locus-standi and cause-of-action for
speaking up against the court, because they are among the most affected
by malpractices and corruption. Sadly, they are silent because they feel
like hostages rather than users of the judicial service provided by the
nation.
It is ironic that they are keeping quiet precisely
because they have so little faith in the system. And so the system goes
on unchecked... because all its stakeholders are part of the conspiracy
of silence for their own special reasons.
Undertrials and convicts in jail have maximum knowledge about the
human-rights abuses that our judges and lawyers are committing on a
daily basis. They must be allowed to speak. We must find a way to give
them back their voices.
Miscarriage of justice is the norm in our
country, not the exception. Due to multiple faults in our system, many
of the people currently in jail don't deserve to be there. They are
there because of an undue and unjust process.
The judiciary derives most
of its power from this ancient, barbaric custom of sending people into
dungeons, and depriving them of family and normal society. It has almost
absolute power to jail us on one or the other pretext, and it derives
its moral authority from our mind-numbing fear of being judged and found
guilty of something or the other.
What is worse, We The People have blocked prisoners out of our
consciousness. We have excommunicated them, and most of us believe that
they are not citizens at all, but just outcasts, evildoers and worthless
trash. That is our fatal mistake.
This is how our tyrannical
judiciary divides us into haves and have-nots. We, who have freedom,
despise the have-nots and will never speak for them. We are afraid of
becoming like them.
Judges are India's undisputed aristocratic class. They have almost
nothing to fear. They live in a perfect bubble of privilege. No matter
how corrupt or criminal they are -- individually and collectively --
they cannot be punished. Every attempt to impeach a corrupt judge since
Independence has miserably failed.
All judges are part of a grand
CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE. For the most part, the only thing that they have
to fear is peer-pressure and social boycott by their own brother-judges.
They know of every malpractice and corruption of the judiciary, and
some, like Chief Justices, briefly enjoy the power to DIRECTLY FIGHT
these evils if they wish. But rather than fighting this great disease
and antagonizing their colleagues, they maintain a "judicious silence".
Even the courageous few who speak out -- like Justice Ruma Pal --
pacify their conscience by making cryptic comments and criticisms,
rather than exposing the entire dirty system with details. That too,
mostly after retirement.
India is on her knees in prayer,
awaiting the day when a few experienced judges will respond to the call
of conscience and fearlessly decide to reform the judicial system.
Lawyers
and court insiders have detailed knowledge of how citizens are
wrongfully deprived of their life, liberty, justice and hope. They know
of various judges' corruption, malpractices and bad habits. And yet,
even the honest ones among them suppress their conscience and keep
quiet.
This is because they have much to lose if they open their
mouths, and much to gain by keeping their mouths shut and taking
advantage of the faults in the system.
Sarkaar
shares a cozy relationship with the judiciary, particularly with the
important judges who hear Writ Petitions & PILs. Neither Govt. of
India nor any state government wants judiciary to become a truly
effective checks-and-balance mechanism in our democracy. In fact, the
more slow and unresponsive judiciary is, the easier it becomes for any
sarkaar to keep common people and activists under control!
Judiciary is a crowd-control mechanism that enables the State to
suppress the people who dissent. It is NOT a justice mechanism.
This is a sad reality that We The People must work hard to change.
Although our netas -- ruling party as well as opposition -- publicly
take up issues relating to common man, they keep quiet about judiciary.
The reason is, there are always criminal cases pending against almost
every neta, dragging on for decades. So judges always have a firm grip
on their egg-rolls, and can squeeze very hard if annoyed.
Even
firebrand journalists avoid reporting on or writing editorials on the
glaring foibles of the judiciary, because being held in contempt
jeopardizes their career.
And of course because media houses
don't give them any opportunities to criticize the judiciary, in the
first place. It is considered too risky... and media houses, after all,
are commercial ventures and not crusaders.
Although their sources often give journalists authentic documentary
information about many wrongdoings in lower and higher judiciary, media
bosses are afraid of publishing such stories... because of the
well-known tendency of judges to interpret the law of contempt in their
own favour and pass draconian orders against the media house and
journalists.
Why
many of well-known anti-corruption activists and human rights champions
maintaining silence over judiciary? Is it the fear that they may have
to go to jail for contempt? Or are they afraid of tarnishing their brand
value by going where media may not support them.
For
the ills of our nation, the public generally points fingers at the
political parties, government, police, bureaucracy, etc. But it is very
rare that anybody points fingers at the judiciary. Why this conspiracy
of silence?
Let us discuss the reasons why various stakeholders
or interest-groups have remained silent for decades... starting with the
common man.
And let us ask whether keeping silent is good for the nation.
Source; Social Media, the Indian Jury of developed judicial system of West.
