25th March 2005

Honorable Dear Sir, 

I am a retired man well passed my sixties in other words, a senior citizen. I am not a law graduate. However, we know that a Law is perfect common sense. Now I am studying working of our judiciary on this basis. I have been observing for some years by now that, the quality of judgment in India is deteriorating gradually. I am also observing that the judges are no more as intelligent as they were in earlier days. Quality of judgment is a relative term but that is aiming at the intentions part of it in this context. 

I decided to do some research in the matter. For that, I took a few Public Interests Litigations for my study one of Iodized common salt and the other one of Helmets. Both are of recent times. In both the cases, I have found many irregularities. To mention a few, the ruling given was, based on not well-proven evidence or solid proof instead; they were, based on hypothetical information. A judgment must be based on only well proven evidence and or solid proof, but somehow that well-established practice was, neglected in these two cases. Moreover, if a judgment is, based on hypothetical information then the ruling must be of recommendatory type and not compulsory type. While here, the ruling in both the cases is compulsory. Technically, it is a wrong ruling according to many experts.  

Another irregularity I found is in the very admission of both these cases as Public Interest Litigation. In reality, both these cases do not come under public interest. they are of only personal interest value, then why these cases admitted as public interest cases at all. I was not in a position to get a satisfactory answer to this question. The way in which Judges were insisting for the implementation of the ruling made me a little more suspicious about the intentions, to put it in better words, ulterior motives of the judges. The only possible motive of course, must be the stake of the judges in the business of both these products. In both these cases, some business interest was definitely involved. As for accidents on road those kill riders it is found that road condition is in many a case more responsible than anything else is. If so then why judges did not insist on the concerned authority to keep roads in perfect condition? Why in the ruling any mention of this, important factor, they avoided? Why there is no punishment for those who do not keep roads in perfect condition? Occasion made me more alert and this finding clearly means that the present judges of Indian Courts are indulging in corrupt practice. After this finding, I decided to study more of the Public Interest Litigations.  Yet Another irregularity I found is that when helmet was made compulsory to riders, in case of death of the rider in spite of wearing (approved type) helmet a compensation from government was expected, but in the ruling no such compensation is provided for, why? This clearly means that the judiciary does not want to burden the concerned authorities and also that the government doe not want to take the responsibility for the failure of the helmet. If the government does not want to take such responsibility then what right, it has to make helmet-wearing compulsory by such a ruling. This question remains to be, answered. The only possible explanation is stakes of the judges. A good judgment must cover all concerned in the act and not put all pressure only on one weak element, here in this case the helmet wearer is the weakest and so held responsible. This is just one example of what I call bad judgment.   

All these and more of the recent rulings in P.I.L. cases give place for suspicion that these judges are working for some or the other business interest and that the present generation of judges is converting our judiciary into a marketing agency. I have smelt the rat in our judiciary system but it remains to prove it beyond doubt. Converting judiciary into a marketing agency is a matter for great concern. In addition, it appears that the decisions were, already taken and the case was only a show. In case of decisions about workers’ strikes cases, also I felt similar experience. As I am studying these cases I have started feeling that a deep-set conspiracy is going on to curtail the democratic freedom of our people by a slow process. Following excuses are, found to be in use to achieve this according to my observation.

1) Environmental,

2) Pollution,

3) Safety,

4) Health,

5) National safety,

6) Terrorists,

7) Removal of blind faith,

8) Protecting interests of some lobby,

9) Protecting interests of Government people,

10) Protecting Governmental and Judicial mistakes,

Even so, the judges pretend that they are doing this for the benefit of ordinary citizens! 

An ordinary citizen is being, marginalized systematically. Some body told me that this experiment of curtailing freedom gradually under these excuses was, first successfully practiced in U.S.A. and the same experiment now being tried here. For me this was a very terrible thing to know and so I have decided to undertake a project to find out details of this criminal practice of our judges. The project named ‘Criminal practices of Indian Judges’. Following topics are included in the study.

1) Are our judges Gods? 

2) Intellectual standard of our judges, no IQ test is compulsory to decide their decisionary ability or no common sense test made before appointment of these judges. I say this because if such tests performed, many judges will fail.  

3) Quality of our judgments, 

4) Quality of evidence and proof accepted by our judges

5) Who is the master of the show, Indian voters or judges?

6) Should we address our judges as Lord or should we stop this imperial practice?

7) What is Justice?

8) How we to judge the quality of a judgment? We observe that a judgment is a report on the given data in the form of evidence, proofs and witnesses closing with a conclusion. Generally, that conclusion treated as the ruling. Is it a correct method? I consider ruling is something much different from mere a report on the findings put before the Court.  

9) Should we stop the practice of promoting lawyers to the position of a Judge? Moreover, should we have Judges specially trained like I.A.S or I.P.S., I.F.S. etc. by forming a separate cadre called Indian Judiciary Service (I.J.S.)? At present, there are exams but the quality of those exams is seriously doubtful. 

10) If judges indulge in false or corrupt ruling; how to protect the interests of common person against that

11) Is our democracy safe in the hands of these corrupt judges?

12) How to know that a particular judge is corrupt

13) To study methods in delay tactics, extensively practiced by our judges

14) How we to find out ulterior motives of a Judge?

15) How we to differentiate between an excuse and a reason?

16) I observe that present judiciary system works primarily to promote business of advocacy in the Court and all manipulations (such as 13) aimed at achieving that. My study will find if there is any merit in this accusation.   

I am writing this letter to your honorable selves because; I want you to contribute to these topics.  I am going to study as many as possible of Public Interest Litigations filed, rejected and tried from the period of 1980 to 2005 in both Supreme Court and Bombay High Court.  I expect to complete the project by the year 2009 provided my failing health permits me. I am going to publish the report in the form of a book.  U.K. based publishing house is interested in it. The book may help our N.R.I.s to decide about their investment in this Country. This book will also give our people insight to know how to protect our democracy from the hands of unscrupulous judges. 

If your honorable self is interested in giving me any suggestions please, send them to me. If you want to contribute to any of the above-mentioned topics, please feel free and send them to me. Those will be included unabridged and without editing in the book. You may disagree with my findings and so in that case please, write your justifications to me. I earnestly believe that our judges are ordinary people and if they over estimate themselves, they must be shown their level. That is the responsibility of senior citizens intellectuals like me. If we senior citizens do not do this in time, our future generations will not pardon us. Seat of Justice and the honor of that seat is one thing and a person employed as a Judge is absolutely another thing. Disrespect shown to such an individual for his wrong doings does not mean disrespect to the Seat of Justice. So please, do not misunderstand me. According to me under this project, every judge is probably an accused or offender of misusing his position for furthering his personal interest at the cost of democratic freedom of our people, until proved otherwise. We should put all and every effort to find out the truth in this regard.

I must mention a very serious fact of consequence, which I have noticed, here before I close this letter. Since 1970 onwards, practically all the first class students opt for either medicine or Engineering and only second and third class students go for Arts. All the lawyers and Chartered accountants of today graduated from this cadre of second and third class students. That means, our Judges and also our economic experts of today are basically of second or third class intellectual level. This finding explains why they are working the way they do.  Therefore, our justice and economy is in shambles. 

Yours truly,  

Dear readers, I never got any acknowledgement for this letter!

I could not complete my this research as I suffered due to an accident.

     I invite you to visit my other blog if you are interested in stories.

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