Letter to BS: Judiciary can't afford erosion of public confidence

This is with reference to “Apex court dismisses pleas for probe into judge Loya’s death” (April 20). The Supreme Court’s (SC) outright dismissal of a batch of PILs seeking an independent probe into judge B H Loya’s death was unfortunate, to put it mildly. Even though we find it very hard, we have to resign ourselves to it. We are within our rights to hold the view that an independent investigation would have propitiated justice. It is sad that the death of a judge has become a political issue. 

The bench that detected political intentions behind the PILs and echoed Harish Salve and Mukul Rohatgi in its verdict cannot escape its share of the blame. It was unfortunate that the case was reduced to a battle between Justices of the Bench and Prashant Bhushan, Indira Jaising and Dushyant Dave. Inexplicably, the SC went to great pains to rap the petitioners and their lawyers and expended little time and energy on finding out why it was not a fit case to conclude that the ‘death was natural’.  

The verdict, cheered by the Bharatiya Janata Party, did not quite kill the sweeping insinuation that ‘one individual’ controls the judiciary, to which the apex court took strong exception. Things have now come to such a pass that the Opposition has had to resort to the unprecedented move of moving an impeachment motion against the Chief Justice of India. The independence of the judiciary is vital for our continued existence as a democracy. The judiciary should guard itself against being perceived as biased or partial and deliver even-handed justice, uphold the majesty of the law in all cases. It cannot afford an erosion of public confidence in how it goes about with its business.

G David Milton 

Tamil Nadu