There is a need to discipline judiciary: Retired judge

PANAJI - A former high court judge Sunday said there was an urgent need to evolve a country-wide mechanism to discipline judiciary.

Speaking at a two-day conference on ‘Strengthening democracy: Role of judiciary’ here, retired justice of the Karnataka High Court M.F. Saldanha said: “We very necessarily need a mechanism to discipline the judiciary. When I say discipline, I know what I mean by it.”

The seminar, which was attended by several former judges and senior advocates, also expressed concern over the functioning of the Indian judicial system.

“The chief justices of the high courts and the Supreme Court should ensure that the best available talent should be absorbed in the judicial system,” Saldanha said, adding that there were nearly three million cases pending in 21 high courts in India and 26.3 million cases pending in other subordinate courts throughout the country.

“The Supreme Court itself had more than 39,000 cases, both civil and criminal, pending up to 2006,” he said.

Supreme Court advocate Prashant Bhushan said a full time agency was necessary to look into complaints against judges in the country.

“We need to urgently constitute a national judicial appointments commission and a national judicial complaints commission, which could look into the aspects of judicial appointments and complaints, respectively,” Bhushan said.