A question of disorder

With reference to Somasekhar Sundaresan’s column, “A chance to score a judicial point” (May 25), the Justice C S Karnan saga appears to be more a disorder within the judiciary than a judge’s accountability to Parliament or the public at large. Before invoking constitutional provisions of checks and balances, we need to ponder over the following.  

First, a judge once appointed can only be impeached. There are no interventions designed in our system between appointment and impeachment. We need to recognise that judges, like any human being, can behave irrationally when it is about their dignity. The judiciary needs to devise a human resources policy having less severe interventions than impeachment.

Parliament has a provision to expel a member from the house for misbehaviour. Similarly, public servants under the executive arm of the state can be suspended from duty so that they can’t use official powers to their advantage. Why can’t there be an in-house mechanism in the judiciary to prevent a judge from passing orders over his fellow judges and the judges of the Supreme Court? 

We need to differentiate between institutional checks and balances, and individuals erring within an institution. Parliament should intervene only when a malaise is affecting the judiciary as an institution.

Amit Kumar Upadhyay   New Delhi

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