Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan's dismissal of a conscientious objector in the judiciary as a ``publicity seeker'' is the latest in a series of attempts by him in recent months to play down or cover up serious issues concerning judicial accountability.
Rather than addressing the public-interest arguments given by Karnataka high court judge D V Shylendra Kumar in favour of putting the declarations of assets by judges in the public domain, Justice Balakrishnan made a personal attack on him saying, "He wants publicity and such a thing is not good for a judge. Judges should not be publicity crazy."
The CJI made no bones of his displeasure at Justice Kumar's attempt at transparency even as he belatedly clarified, in damage-control mode, that judges were free to make public the details of their assets despite the institutional reservation maintained by him.
Such ambivalence has been a recurring feature in Justice Balakrishnan's handling on the administrative side of other judicial accountability matters as well.
* The RTI application, which triggered the assets controversy, only sought to know whether judges had been filing declarations of their assets before the CJI in terms of a resolution adopted by all the judges of the Supreme Court on May 7, 1997. Since the resolution stipulated that the declarations would be held in confidence, the application filed by activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal did not ask for the details of any of the declared assets.
Yet, Justice Balakrishnan refused to answer under the RTI even the limited question whether the judges still complied with the 1997 resolution. The silence was mainly to buttress his claim that the CJI's office was beyond the scrutiny of RTI and so no information lying there would ever be disclosed under that law.
CJI using different yardsticks for different judges?
* The in-house procedure of inquiry to deal with complaints against judges came into existence because of another resolution that had been adopted by the Supreme Court judges in 1997 on the very day they had resolved to file declarations of assets. Although some judges have since been probed and even punished under the in-house procedure, Justice Balakrishnan repeatedly said that the 1997 resolution relating to assets was purely "voluntary" and that judges would be willing to make their declarations public if a law required them to do so.
But the Bill that was introduced in the last session of Parliament in consultation with the CJI turned out to be a blatant attempt to keep the declarations of assets behind a veil of secrecy. The outrage over the opacity clause forced law minister Veerappa Moily to withdraw the Bill within minutes, in a major blow to the credibility of the judiciary.
* When Justice Soumitra Sen of the Calcutta high court refused to resign despite his indictment by the in-house procedure, Justice Balakrishnan asked the government to initiate impeachment proceedings against him. But when it came to Justice Nirmal Yadav of the Punjab and Haryana high court in the cash-for-judge scam, the CJI made no such recommendation against her despite an even more severe indictment by the in-house procedure.
Instead, he allowed the CBI to drop the corruption case against Justice Yadav on the opinion of the attorney general. The inaction lent credence to Justice Yadav's counter-allegation that other judges were involved in the scam.
* When Justice R Reghupathy of the Madras high court made the sensational charge that a Union minister had tried to influence him in a pending case through a telephone call, Justice Balakrishnan's initial reaction was to deplore the interference with the administration of justice.
Yet, the matter was allowed to die simply because it was found that a lawyer visiting Justice Reghupathy's chamber had made the call to the minister and the judge had displayed enough alacrity not to take the mobile phone from him. Thanks to the quick burial of the scandal, there was no inquiry into the role of the lawyer concerned and his possible link with the minister.
* In a glaring instance of double standards, Justice Balakrishnan has so far not invoked the in-house procedure of inquiry on the wealth of evidence submitted over a year ago by the Punjab vigilance bureau suggesting that touts were involving in fixing cases and judicial appointments. The CJI's apathy has raised a stink because the bureau reports, accompanied by transcripts of intercepted telephone conversations, point to the complicity of two high court judges.
