By Prof. Ranjan Mohapatra 

In the meeting of Chief Ministers and Chief Justices of High Courts held in Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi  some time back, the Prime Minister gave a clear message to the Judiciary to put its house in order or face curtailment on  judicial autonomy. No one should know better than the Judiciary that genuine or true authority and autonomy stays with responsible people who can respect and handle autonomy and authority with dignity. 

The conduct of Judiciary including higher judiciary during the last few years, marked by Sumit Mukherjee scandal of Delhi High Court, free sale of judgments by Rajasthan High Court, sex scandal of Madras High Court, club scandal of Punjab High Court leading to strike of High Court Judges, do not confirm to the standards expected from the last pillar of hope of Indian Democracy. It is not commonly  known that the Judiciary is not managing its house with responsibility and dignity. The case of Justice Khandelwal, who was suspected to have favored his relatives, the Supreme Court refusal to declare the assets of the Judges under RTI Act etc , speaks volumes for itself. 

It is definitely a matter of grave concern for any conscious Indian. But, why is the standard of Judiciary falling, why is corruption, unethical practices making inroads into the Judiciary? Is the Prime Minister and the Government, doing enough to improve, performance of Judiciary? Is it not true that the decline in the standards of Judiciary is the outcome of a perennial neglect of the Government in addressing the issues of Judiciary? 

It is commonly believed that Judiciary suffers from lack of freedom, lack of resources for infrastructure, for filling posts of judges etc. and the Government, the Executive is not supporting the process of empowerment of Judiciary.  The gradual decline of the quality of Justice delivery system, has led to a situation , where many citizens have expressed their anger against the courts and the courts in turn have  reacted with the brahmastra with them that contempt of Court , by putting the citizen in jail including eminent activists and authors like Arundhati Roy and activists and many others. 

Now, if it is a case of the Judiciary taking action against the society, which is impatient through the provision of Contempt of Court , the Judiciary –being neglected by the Executive and Legislature , through provision of limited funds, non-appointment of adequate judges etc. This is commonly perceived to be the agenda of the executive to keep the judiciary weak, so that they can be arm twisted during times of need, in case of political conflict with opposition, which is very frequent in a coalition politics. 

This may be noted here that on the floor of the house, in response to a question on adequate funds for judicial reform etc, the Union Law Minister said  that no  more could be provided for judicial reform as our social sector programmes like , education, health , rural development would have been suffered. Is it not clear to the Government that no development process can run effectively in a law less environment?  Peace is an essential precondition for progress and development. 

Look at the insurgency affected areas in different parts of India, in spite of the development funds reaches from the Government and the Government System, it fails to reach people and it reaches the insurgency groups. Most of the BDOs and Block Staff in insurgency affected areas in Bihar, don't go to office for fear of life. 

It is a fact   that , every human society has inherent power to progress and develop like,  the human body having power to heal itself. What is only needed is guarantee of safety – security and justice. Thus , hypothetically speaking, if we spend all our budget in defense ( for external security ) and Criminal Justice System , which involves, the Judiciary and  the police , for internal security and justice, the natural progress that can be achieved,  would be much more than the progress, development  or mal-development that can be achieved as per the present trend of development programmes. 

I remember a real life case , spoken to me by a forest service official, about an area of forest which was adopted for growth of plantation , investing huge funds for manpower, seeds , water, management etc. After few years, it was found to be less dense a forest than the adjoining forest, without any intervention and the investment. Thus, giving top most priority for the delivery of justice is obviously beneficial to all . 

But in the present case, it is true that the government is interested in a weak Judiciary to protect its own weakness of mal-governance induced by the wrong, criminal elements, who are a part of the government and poor systems of governance  , it only confirms that the governments are ruling India , on the foundation of injustice and afraid of a system which can provide justice , to block misuse of authority. 

Is this not , a case of Contempt of Justice by the government, which is larger a crime in comparison to a citizen, a litigant , disrespecting a court and attracting due or undue penalty from the courts under the contempt of court provision. In that case, what penalty will the executive and legislature, deserve and who will penalize the Executive and Legislature. The penalty to the Executive and the Legislature, who work in tandem, can only be given by theElectorate. 

Let's look at the conceptual framework of government and justice delivery and its history in India, with a strong spiritual foundation, which preached and practiced governance based on , Truth ( Satya) , Justice ( Nyay) and Dharma ( principles of right living ). As per the Indian belief system, the nation is like that of a human being, with a body and a soul of its own, where the Prime Minister ( functionally and the President, constitutionally ) is the head of the body. Like a human being, the success and development of a nation is dependent on its quality of soul and the quality of body. Indians know this, may be more than any other nation, where the nation is worshipped as a Mother, called Bharat Mata. 

As per Vedantic philosophy, souls are classified in to five classes based on their level of quality and the success of the human being is mostly dependent on the quality or grade of the soul. The classification of the souls is primarily on a key parameter i.e., selfishness. 

The different classes of souls as per Vedanta are symbolized by, Stone Men- who is immobile and does not make any effort to even take care of its own interest, Tree Men, who takes care it own interest first by sucking the energy from environment ( soil, air, water etc) and then throws the balance as fruits, Animal-Men, takes care of the interest of its family, Human-Men, the Social Animal, who makes efforts to take care of the Human Society as a whole, lastly the Godly-Men, who are concerned about the whole universe, including the Human Society, Plant Society  ( Environment), the Animal Society ( Wild Life ) etc.  

Based on this Vedantic classification of souls, there is no doubt that soul of India belongs to the class of Godly Men.  The history of India, since ancient times has been reflecting its concern for the universe and universal brotherhood, it has exhibited its capacity to accept and absorb multiple cultures emerging from foreign lands like the Christianity, the Islam etc and the capacity to develop new sects and religions from its land like Budhism, Jainism, Sikhism etc. The land of India is truly called Devabhumi , the land of Gods.

This strength of the spirit of India is felt by the world since ages, attracting the people from all over the world towards its spirituality, which is nothing but the strength or the class of the spirit of India. 

Therefore, no one can stop India from achieving its rightful, place in the world, if it has the right body. Right body refers to the structure of government like that of a body structure, like, athletic, healthy, lean etc. It is said that a pious soul gets a body structure matching with his soul like a soft body with positive energy reflecting face and a criminal gets a body structure that of a criminal i.e., robust and muscular body and negative energy reflecting face etc.. Though, it is generally true, there are exceptions due to karmic reasons. However, these exceptions are short-term, for adjustment of karmic balances. 

In case of a nation like India, the net score of karmic balance refers to the vices or virtues of all the countrymen.  The most important fact is that the net karmic balance, either vices or virtues goes on the head of the king or the head of state. From here, emerge the rights and authorities of the head of a state, for controlling the injustice or sin committed in the country and supporting the good deeds or virtues committed by the countrymen. 

The success and development of a country depends on the governance of the country ensuring justice and fare play, which is the foundation, required for success and development of the country with specific reference to the sub-systems of the Development System of a country,i.e.,

a)      Economic activity,

b)      Social & cultural activity and

c)      Political activity, giving due representation to all sections of the society. 

Thus, it may be concluded that the primary goal of any government, may be the elected government of the modern times or a king in any monarchy, is to provide good governance, the acid test of which is, providing justice to the common man. This acid test of delivering justice is linked to the success of the Head of the State, who may be a Prime Minister, a President or a King, who ever has the genuine authority to rule the country. From here, it may be concluded that the primary focus of any government including the government of India, in building a better nation is to ensure justice through an appropriate methods. 

In the olden days, the Kings were respected for their justice delivery ability as a judicious king. Raja Vikramaditya , is an example. The stories of Vikram and Vetaal, reflects the intellectual ability of the King as a Judge , how many such judges we have in India today ?. If, we only have handful of such judges, our entire back log of cases will vanish. The judges should have the capacity to cut across the legal web of rules, regulation, procedures and distinguish truth from false hood, milk from water and deliver instant justice to strengthen the confidence of the masses in the government. 

One may also recollect the good old stories of intelligent kings of old days including the stories of Sinmhasan Vatishi. Once the village boy was atop the hill, he was solving critical cases through sharp intelligence, but once out of the hill top, he was again dumb boy, unable to handle the cases. This reflects the power intellect  in judiciary . In those days, the court for justice and the durbar of the king was the same. The provision of justice was the number one priority over all other services of the government after defense.

There was no separate institution for justice delivery like the present day democracies. Even, if the judicial institution is separate from the Executive today, the ultimate responsibility lies with the head of the state for strengthening the Judiciary for being effective in delivering justice and increases his balance of virtue and reduce his vice. 

Thus, it may be concluded that in the process of nation building, providing justice is more essential a function of government than providing employment and food, as it acts as a foundation for sustainable development by purifying the soul of a nation and strengthening the body of a nation i.e., the institutions for governance like, the Executive, the Legislature, the media and the judiciary itself, who seems to have polluted themselves with the vice of injustice.

Public opinion is bound to support for any move to strengthen justice delivery system. Only lip service and fault finding of the Judiciary is not going to work. A much larger holistic change is over due. So, the Head of the State need to act, at any cost, failing which, it would construed to be a Contempt of Justice. 

[The author is based in Delhi and is the chairman of Vision Foundation for development management. You can send your comments and suggestions at janatavikasmanch@gmail.com]