Our justice delivery system serves only a handful of lawyer and judicial families and dynasties. Invoking the basic structure doctrine, they have rewritten the Constitution and created the Collegium, arrogating to themselves the power to appoint judges. Through PILs, they make laws behind the backs of the people affected and run the Government. Using the power of contempt, they silence criticism. A few dynasties of lawyers and judges have hijacked our justice delivery system. The system under which judges designate lawyers as Senior Advocates has made the entire Bar servile.
The majority of first-generation lawyers come from rural, agricultural, humble, or vernacular-language backgrounds. Despite being equally talented, if not more so, than the elite, they are relegated to the sidelines of the legal profession. With a few noble exceptions, judges often dismiss ordinary first-generation lawyers while going out of their way to favour the kith and kin of sitting and retired judges, senior lawyers, and the powerful.
The legal profession and the judicial system have been entirely hijacked by these dynasties and the powerful. There is no one to speak up or raise a voice against them, because anyone who does so is silenced and professionally liquidated. Despite being the vast majority, first-generation lawyers feel helpless and do not dare to question this subservience or the injustice done to them.
When it comes to governmental excesses, atrocities, or arbitrariness, we have the political opposition, the press, and space to protest. But when it comes to judicial atrocities—nepotism, corruption, and the like—there is no one to question them.
A classic example is the Justice Varma case, in which crores of rupees went up in flames. Everyone in Delhi knows whose money it was. It is said to have belonged to another judge, far more powerful and important than Justice Varma. Yet nobody—not the Supreme Court Bar Association nor the Delhi High Court Bar Association—uttered a word. Both proved themselves spineless.
This situation is deeply painful, condemnable, and hopeless. But that does not mean we should give up hope, suffer in silence, or refrain from questioning the prevailing malpractices, nepotism, favouritism, denial of justice to ordinary litigants, and intimidation of ordinary lawyers.
It is precisely for this purpose that the National Lawyers’ Campaign was formed. Today, across 207 WhatsApp groups, we have around 90,000 ordinary lawyers, hundreds of litigants, and members of civil society.
It is time for us to act. Our top priorities are:
(a) Abolition of the Collegium System;
(b) Abolition of the Senior Designation System; and
(c) Live streaming of court proceedings, as in the Gujarat High Court, together with the archiving of those proceedings and public access to the video records.
Live streaming ensures that judges who misbehave, deny justice, or terrorise junior lawyers and litigants are exposed. Cameras do not lie. Why be afraid of cameras? With a few noble exceptions, judges in the Bombay High Court and many other High Courts have kept the public at large out of court proceedings. Today, there is even a tendency to wind up virtual hearings and restrict public access. This must be resisted.
Lawyers are not slaves, yet they are made to behave like them. Go to any court in this country—even the Supreme Court—and you will find lawyers behaving like slaves and indulging in flattery. That is not respect. Excessive deference is contempt, sycophancy, bootlicking, and submission. This must end.
All right-thinking people—retired judges, lawyers, and members of the public—should join us. We stand for the judiciary, a better system, and better justice. No one should oppose us except those who are corrupt or engage in malpractice, nepotism, and the intimidation of lawyers and litigants.
I call upon one and all to join us in this movement.
I will be in Delhi at the Supreme Court throughout the week beginning 25 October. Kindly get in touch with me.