THE MOVING OF AN IMPEACHMENT MOTION in the Rajya Sabha against Dipak Mishra, chief justice of the Supreme Court, and its rejection by the vice president of India, ex officio chairman of the upper house of Parliament, is yet another manifestation of the rot slowly but inexorably destroying the country’s judicial system. It’s pertinent to bear in mind that just three months ago, four senior justices — members of the apex court’s collegium which (under a ruling of the court) has exclusive power to appoint Supreme Court and high court judges — called an unprecedented press conference in Delhi, during which they publicly alleged that Chief Justice Misra in exercise of his powers as ‘master of the roster’, is motivatedly constituting benches of the apex court to hear important constitutional law cases and appeals, often bypassing the court’s senior most judges. 

This unprecedented division and disaffection among the senior most judges of the Supreme Court is symptomatic of a deep malaise which is corroding the country’s justice system across the board from the lowest magistrate’s court to the Supreme Court in Delhi. This foundational rot is endangering the fundamental concept of the rule of law and suborning the basic structure of the Constitution of India. 

Division and disaffection within the upper judiciary has created opportunities for political parties — especially the ruling BJP/NDA government at the Centre — to appoint judges sympathetic to its ideology and prejudices in the Supreme and high courts across the country, as indeed it attempted to do with the National Judicial Accountability Act, 2014 which was rejected and declared ultra vires by the Supreme Court in 2015. 

Yet disaffection in the Supreme Court is only one manifestation of 21st century India’s debilitated and dangerously eroded legal and judicial system. The deeper malaise is the globally notorious delay of contemporary India’s legal system rooted in the world’s most adverse judges to population ratio (19/million), and archaic procedural laws which permit repeated adjournments. In this connection, it’s pertinent to note that the US Supreme Court relies mainly on written pleadings and affidavits, whereas verbose lawyers in India’s over-burdened courts are routinely permitted to continue oral addresses and examination of witnesses for days on end. 

Successive law commissions have recommended ways and means to end the law’s agonising delay and upend the country’s collapsed legal system. But pressure on unheeding governments must be exerted not only by the judiciary, but also by notoriously money-grubbing lawyers who seem content to derive easy pickings from the country’s garbage heap legal system.