Story of a Chief Justice

Title: Story of a Chief Justice

Author: Justice U. L. Bhat

Publisher: Universal Law Publishing, 2013 (First)

ISBN: 9789350353653

Pages: 457

Judiciary is one of the three pillars of any democracy. Its absolute independence is a prerequisite to personal freedom and liberty of the people. It is the watchdog which protects the society from the depredations of the executive. At least, this is the premise of civics textbooks. But in India, the judiciary had been on the path of heightened activism ever since elected governments failed to command an absolute majority on its own in Parliament for the major party. Courts began to usurp more and more privileges from the executive. Going by some of the recent decisions of courts, it may be surmised that they have reached the stage of policy making as well. This state of affairs is not desirable as the judges are not ultimately responsible to the people for the power and privileges they handle. People can’t oust them and the appointment of judges has also been taken over by the courts. A great tug of war is taking place between the Union Government and the Supreme Court of India on the appointment of judges. It is in this backdrop that we read the memoirs of Shri. Ullal Lakshminarayana Bhat, who practiced in local courts of Kasaragod, Kerala, then elevated as a district judge, and then as a judge of Kerala High Court. He was promoted and posted as Chief Justice of Gauhati and Madhya Pradesh High Courts. Finally, after retirement, he was deputed as the President of Central Excise and Gold (control) Appellate Tribunal for three years. He is living in Bengaluru after retirement and occasionally practices as a senior advocate in Karnataka Bar.

Bhat is always partial to what interests him or in which he has a professional interest. The tradition of high courts is that a portion of its judges will be selected from the Bar. Such practicing lawyers thus have access to a course in which some form of direct recruitment is available. The other stream enters the court by granting promotions to service judges officiating in district courts. From numerous references in this book, it seems to an impartial observer that these service judges harbour some kind of inferiority complex vis-à-vis their counterparts directly selected from the Bar. As can be seen in several places in the book, the service judges tend to form a clique and help their fellows. We read about Bhat enhancing the reservation of service judges from 33% to 40% at the first instance when it was in his power to do so. Another notable thing is that the author mentions some of the other judges and lawyers along with the community to which they belong. Such petty community-consciousness is odious in a learned judge. This brings in sharp focus the plight of judiciary which is filled to the brim with upper castes. Another character trait seen in the book is the constant uneasiness against being victimized in some form or the other. Even a transfer to a distant place or a first posting in an inconvenient town is construed as someone playing tricks against him. When he was promoted as district judge, he had to travel to Thiruvananthapuram from his native Kasaragod, which are at the extreme southern and northern points of a geographically north-south elongated Kerala state. What infuriates him is not his place of posting, but the OBC candidate promoted along with him got a seat at Kottayam from his native Irinjalakuda, both in the middle of the state. After he was promoted and posted as the chief justice of Gauhati High Court, his bone of contention was that there were no connecting flights from Kochi to Guwahati and he could reach there only on the third day, while other promoted judges could reach their destinations within hours. And this – can you believe this? – is cited as discrimination.

Even though Justice Bhat had experience only on the civil side of jurisprudence, he was appointed as district judge who tried criminal cases and rose to prominence with logical judgments and decisions. Political background of judges is now a serious point of concern. How can we expect them to be impartial at the higher echelons of judiciary, even though it can be argued that they are bound by the oath at the time of swearing in the office? Bhat worked for the undivided communist party while being a lawyer and was the leader of several trade unions. He even contested elections to local bodies on the party ticket. Other prominent judges who also dabbled in politics are Justices V R Krishna Iyer and P Subramanian Potti. The author was in close friendship with both.

The book is too personal in some parts and too complicated with legal jargon at other places. Bhat proceeds with giving unjustifiably lengthy details of his extended family in a chapter in which the whereabouts of thirteen of his sister’s children are disclosed. His family members are well placed and the author is not unduly concerned about flaunting it. On the other hand, the language is too terse with legal terms abundantly used. Without a glossary, readers find it difficult to make out terms like ‘puisne judges’. Trumpeting one’s own accolades is a genuine charge to which the learned justice should plead guilty. He reproduces verbatim the felicitations made by other judges and lawyers on the occasion of his joining or leaving the services of a court. Bhat claims himself to be a person who exclaims what feels right to him to anybody. Uncharacteristically for such a person, the book is silent about the period of Emergency, when Bhat was silently working as a district judge. This strange silence on the period is punctuated only by the incident of missing his school-going daughter for two hours. Looking at the style of writing and general décor, it seems that the author didn’t enjoy reading books from outside the legal profession. This is only a guess, but quite likely, considering the hectic schedule and homework required for a serving judge.

The book introduces some shocking revelations against the judiciary. The author asserts that even in higher judiciary, a godfather is necessary. Earlier, this was so in government, but later, this extended to judiciary as well (p. 259). He is referring to his sidelining in selection to the post of Supreme Court Judge in favour of K S Paripoornan who was junior to him in service. In these days of Collegium which selects judges, contacts in the right places are good for everyone. Cultivation of the collegium members has become a normal feature in the judiciary (p. 399). V R Krishna Iyer, in the foreword, mentions the dangers of the collegium system. Iyer claims that the system possesses no transparency and steeped in sycophancy. The Parliament doesn’t dare to scrap the system. However, the present government did bring in the National Judicial Appointments Commission to select judges to higher courts that envisaged consultations in a transparent manner. However, the Supreme Court scrapped the commission as unconstitutional. The nation at present witnesses a cold war between the Supreme Court and the Union Government regarding the appointment of 43 judges proposed by the collegium. The result has not been out, and Bhat’s and Krishna Iyer’s remarks assume great relevance in this connection to contemporary events.

The author was a hardworking judge who tried to make genuine positive changes in the functioning of courts. Two of his strongest points are his insistence on clearing the backlog of pending cases and the need for imparting training to judicial officers. He strived for setting targets on the number of pending suits in courts under his jurisdiction and linked the performance assessment of his subordinates to the speedy clearance of long-delayed cases. Wherever he went, he put into being or resurrected judicial academies for the training of judges. What can be said against him and the book is his undue persistence on service matters such as seniority. He is also upset over the practice of assigning lower seniority to service candidates as opposed to practicing lawyers from the Bar during induction to judicial service. A lot of research has gone into making of the book, but the proof reading is pathetic. A lot of unpardonable mistakes have crept in, which looks like errors in dictation. The book is gifted with a name-index as well as a subject-index. A lot of colour photographs add interest to the narrative.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 2 Star