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Justice Ranjan Gogoi , who will be the next Chief Justice of India, in his Ramnath Goenka Memorial lecture analysed the judiciary, its problems, strengths, public faith it commands and concluded that ‘infallibility’ of judges and their judgments could only shape the vision of justice and expressed his desire to pursue the ideal of ‘infallibility’.

In that pursuit, Justice Gogoi tweaked a published view and said in today’s context, what the country needed was “not only independent judges and noisy journalists, but even independent journalists and sometimes noisy judges”.

Noisy judges are the darlings of the public, which experiences mythical David vs Goliath battles in its daily struggle for survival. The only exception in real life is that David seldom wins. So when people find a constitutional court judge taking on the Goliath of a government or high public functionaries, loud cheers and clapping follow. Public appreciation acts like an aphrodisiac. It eggs on judges to become noisier.

We all remember the adulation heaped on an SC judge for comparing the CBI to a “caged parrot” during the probe into the coal scam. What happened next? The CBI chargesheeted a former PM and a minister among many others. The judge’s noise fizzled out when the Supreme Court allowed the minister’s prosecution but not that of the ex-PM.

In the mid-1990s, a Delhi additional district and sessions judge compared Parliament to fish market while cutting to size heavyweight Congress politicians H K L Bhagat and Kalpnath Rai. The public went gaga over him. But he was censured by the SC for making such unwarranted noise.

In contrast, there was a judge, Justice H R Khanna, who silently penned his dissent, stood up firmly for protection of people’s fundamental rights when the Emergency storm had bent stalwart SC judges. He still gets hearty applause for his bravery that made a vindictive government rob him of the CJI ’s post.

We have grown up with the SC’s oft-reiterated statement that a judge should not speak about his judgment, that his judgment should speak for itself and, of course, about him. But the Supreme Court has from time to time expressed varied perceptions about how a judge should be, apart from possessing the sine qua non qualities of honesty, independence and integrity.

In Daya Shankar vs Allahabad HC case, the Supreme Court in 1987 had said judges could not preach what they did not practice. It had said, “Judicial officers cannot have two standards, one in the court and another outside the court. They must have only one standard of rectitude, honesty and integrity. They cannot act even remotely unworthy of the office they occupy.”

Eleven years later, in Ramesh Chand Paliwal judgment in 1998, the SC said judges needed to shed their ambitions and aspiration and behave like hermits.

“It is imperative under constitutional discipline that they (judges) work in tranquillity. Judges have been described as ‘hermits’. They have to live and behave like ‘hermits’ who have no desire or aspiration, having shed it through penance. Their mission is to supply light and not heat,” it had said. When judges become noisy, it certainly supplies more heat than light.

In 2004, the SC in Tarak Singh vs Jyoti Basu case had said, “Because of the position that we (judges) occupy and the enormous power we wield, no other authority can impose discipline on us. All the more reasons judges exercise self-discipline of high standards. The character of a judge is being tested by the power he wields. Abraham Lincoln once said, ‘Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power’. The justice delivery system, like any other system in every walk of life, will fail and crumble down in the absence of integrity.

“Because of the power he wields, a judge is being judged more strictly than others. Integrity is the hallmark of judicial discipline, apart from others. It is high time the judiciary must take utmost care to see that the temple of justice does not crack from inside, which will lead to catastrophe in the justice delivery system resulting in the failure of public confidence in the system. We must remember that woodpeckers inside pose a larger threat than the storm outside.

“There is nothing wrong in a judge to have ambition to achieve something, but if the ambition to achieve is likely to cause compromise with his divine judicial duty, better not to pursue it.” Will Justice Gogoi’s remark about the need for “sometimes noisy” judges start a trend in courtrooms?

Justice Gogoi favoured a judiciary that was more proactive with judges on the front foot, obviously to dispense justice. He refused to be defensive, and rightly so, about the huge pendency of cases. “The judiciary today is not a poor workman who blames his tools, but it is a workman with no tools,” he said.

It reflects sadly on a nation which, even 70 years after its birth, has failed to provide judiciary, a crucial limb of governance, adequate infrastructure. Will judges making noise help? Justice Gogoi sounded hopeful when he said, “Everything has been said already, but as no one listens, we must begin again.”

People come to courts praying for just remedy to cancerous litigation which has sapped them mentally and financially. They do not understand the lofty constitutional rulings of the Supreme Court. What they need is not noisy judges, nor hermits, but independent and honest judges getting rid of their litigation. If judges devise a way to give this relief to common litigants, they will be the cynosure of the public without being noisy.

