Former Supreme Court judge Madan B Lokur (File photo)

NEW DELHI: Jesus and the woman taken in adultery’, a passage found in the ‘Gospel of John’, is a poignant story told and re-told in many languages. Bollywood film ‘Roti’ had a popular song sequence ‘Yaar hamari baat suno’ based on Jesus’s advice to a congregation baying to stone a woman for committing adultery. Jesus had told them that only those who have never sinned in life could throw stones at the woman. To the congregation’s credit, it realised its folly and dispersed without any one picking a stone.

The present times are just the opposite. Habitual sinners mostly throw stones at those whom they perceive to have sinned. They seldom introspect. They choose not to seek facts before pointing fingers at others. In their eyes, they are the sole repositories of rectitude.

Former Supreme Court judge Madan B Lokur recently wrote an article, ‘Govt calling the SC shots? Collegium’s actions show that the NJAC which was struck down four years ago is back, with a vengeance’. To back his post-retirement perception about the collegium, which selects persons for appointment as Supreme Court and high court judges and transfers judges from one HC to another, Justice Lokur cited the collegium decisions which were changed after the Centre expressed reservations over earlier recommendations.

Justice Lokur cited two examples. The collegium’s recommendation for appointment of Justice Vikram Nath as chief justice of Andhra Pradesh and Justice Akil Kureshi as chief justice of Madhya Pradesh. Following the Centre’s reservations, the collegium recommended appointment of Justice Nath as CJ of Gujarat and Justice Kureshi as chief justice of Tripura . Justice Lokur saw it as the Centre calling the shots in the collegium and lamented reasons not being spelled out for change of recommendations. He argued for transparency.

A few instances will refresh his memory. In September 2017, the collegium, of which Justice Lokur was a part, controversially recommended transfer of Justice Jayant Patel from Karnataka HC, where he was on the verge of becoming acting chief justice, to Bombay HC.

The government had reservations over Justice Patel going to Bombay high court. Days later, the collegium met again and decided to change its earlier recommendation and transfer Justice Patel to Allahabad HC. Justice Patel resigned. Justice Lokur did not insist on reasons being spelled out for the change in recommendation. Was government calling the shots?

Interestingly, Justice Lokur had agreed to change of Justice Patel’s transfer destination only after the collegium agreed to his demand for bringing a judge, who was transferred to Madras high court, back to his parent Delhi high court. No reason was assigned by the collegium for transferring the other judge from Madras high court to Delhi high court. Sunlight as a disinfectant, which Justice Lokur argued in his article, was probably screened by some cloudy spell at that time. There was another instance of such a flip-flop by the collegium, to which Justice Lokur was a party. In January last year, the collegium had recommended appointment of Justice Aniruddha Bose as CJ of Delhi high court.

In July 2018, the collegium, of which Justice Lokur was the third most senior judge, noted the Centre’s reservation on appointment of Justice Bose as CJ of Delhi HC and resolved to “recommend that Justice Rajendra Menon, CJ of Patna HC, be transferred on account of administrative exigencies, to Delhi HC.” As he was part of the collegium, Justice Lokur did not perceive it as “government calling the shots” nor was he bitten by the transparency bug then. What is the scale of transparency that Justice Lokur expects to infuse into the collegium? Wish he had specified while being a member of it. We will present him a transparency-triggered tragedy, ruin of career and personal life of an upright district judge from Tamil Nadu.

The collegium had in October 2017 gone ballistic about transparency and decided to upload on the SC website reasons for selection or rejection of persons for appointment as HC judges. The district judge was in the zone of consideration for selection as judge of Madras HC. But the Intelligence Bureau report on him was adverse. The collegium rejected him as unsuitable based on the IB report. Later, discreet inquiries showed that the IB report was incorrect.

By that time, the man had suffered ignominy and was ostracised in judicial and legal circles as a person of doubtful integrity. His children distanced themselves from him. He was denied extension of service from 58 years to 60 years, which is granted to almost all district judges as a norm. There are several such careers which lie in ruins because of the collegium’s resolutions being uploaded on the SC website. Hope Justice Lokur will introspect and understand.

