Whenever we hear the words judiciary or courts in Indian context we picture an old building with lawyers and judges moving slowly with sober faces. The usual complaints about our Indian courts are that they are sluggish and understaffed. I totally agree to that.
But like everything else there is other side of Indian Judiciary system, which is mighty , sensible and importantly changing with the times. The judiciary says Hinduism is not a religion and but way of life but interestingly it approved of gay couples and premarital sex. Don’t think these judgments are contradictory, the court has placed hinduism in the spiritual shelf and sex in the individual. Its considering live-in relations as marriages and issuing divorces with alimony if someone approaches and it clearly stated that sleeping with someone for money or some purpose cant be considered as a relationship at all. Even one night stands cant be considered as relationships. This clarity about the definition of relationship is very amusing. Indicating the true equal nature between the genders many judgments were given where the girl has to pay alimony to the guy if his financial position is lower than her.
And the fight between judiciary and Indian parliament is legendary. It started right after we become republic. Both are at the loggerheads on amending power of the constitution. Parliament says as India is a democratic country the representatives of the people must have the full powers to change the constitution. From the principles of democracy it sounds right but what if in the next elections congress won 3/4 of the seats in loksabha and made an amendment which changes India into a monarchial nation with gandhi-nehru family as the ruling dynasty? Or what if BJP ones the majority and converts india into Hindu-nation and started implementing sati ?
Judiciary and parliament fought over this power for decades and finally supreme court delivered a verdict saying that parliament can amend the constitution unless it messes up with the basic structure of the constitution which is being a liberal, democratic nation with parliamentary democracy with independent judiciary.
The legendary fight started with the right to property as a fundamental right. The fight continued but the cause of the fight been changing The basic theme of the fight is to limit the power of changing the constitution of each other.
To make the fight more democratic or people-centric, Public interest litigation concept was introduced. Earlier a person should be the victim in order to approach the court now anyone can seek justice at courts if the topic is in interest of public. A lot of NGO’s have been using this as a weapon against the misdeeds of the system.
The intervention of judiciary did not stop there, it invites it self in any matter if it thinks the govt is not acting properly. Like where it asked govt about the rotten grains, asked PMO about the employing Thomas as CVC, asked why has not the govt took any action against Raja so far…and yesterday it asked the govt to disclose the hidden chapters of Srikrishna committee report on Telangana issue.
Usually we think the role of the judge is to refer the rule-book (penal code or constitution ) and give the verdict. If giving judgment is that easy anybody could be a judge. (A couple of months ago there was a news in The Hindu about the Chinese judiciary system where a person can become a judge at the age of 23, and the journalist was asking why not India? Usually a person of that young age cant decide which girl to go for or which car to buy…forget about giving judgments which affects others). Our judges constantly tried to “improve” the scope of the constitution by interpreting the laws and language used in better way. Like in Bombay street dwellers case…court gave the new interpretation for “Right to life”. And according Indian courts …when the words “living” or “life” occurs in the constitution they don’t mean animal living…it’s the living with human dignity. And for to lead a life like that a person must be free, have the right to speak, his right to privacy, must have education and must posses knowledge which affects his/her life . And these things ultimately led to right to information and right to education acts.
Is there any solution to rev up the justice system in india so that a person wont spend much time in jail than the sentenced term he has to stay if the case against him is proved? Fast track courts ? More judges ? Limiting the number of sittings per case?
In a country of 1.1 Billion population its hard to speed up the things. In 1.1 Billion people there always will be scoundrels who try to exploit the system. People like Justice Dinkaran prove that even judges are people with corrupt mind. This massive country needs a big and robust judiciary system which can be accomplished only when people drift from techinal studies to social sciences.
