State judiciary faced with a range of challenges

The year 2015 was a bitter-sweet year for the Tamil Nadu High Court – sorry, Madras High Court. The bill to change the name is still pending in Parliament.  With depleted strength and mounting arrears, the court is facing an uphill task. Another four months to go and its strength will go down, with there being only 28 judges as against the sanctioned 60. Despite the Supreme Court’s claims about the superiority of the collegium system and rejection of the National Judicial Appointments Commission, the court is yet to have its full complement of judges.  

It is sad to note that there have been no appointments since the last two years.  Though some disposal statistics are released through periodical Lok Adalats (and some Maha Adalats) they are mostly pre-litigation strategies and are no answer to the huge arrears.  The government’s refusal to obey several of its orders and 21,000 contempt petitions to deal with, the court was faced a contempt notice issued by a sitting judge, CS Karnan, as against the Chief Justice.  It was forced to move the Supreme Court to get a stay on that notice.  

No wonder then that Chief Justice of India HL Dattu remarked, “The Madras High Court judges preside in courts with fear psychosis, expecting mobs to come in and attack them at any time… all because of you lawyers.”  But except for such off-the-cuff remarks, no action was initiated against the judge despite three successive Chief Justices having made a written complaint and 21 Judges having sent a signed petition, complaining about his conduct.  So much for claims of superiority of the collegium system! The professional agitators among lawyers brought the situation to a brink by protesting inside the Chief Justice’s court hall to make Tamil the court language.   

Some groups of lawyers carried a crusade against the compulsory helmet rule imposed by Justice Kirubakaran.  The High Court promptly responded to these two protests through the issuance of suo moto contempt notices and the open court comment made by the CJI gave a wake-up call to the Bar Council of India to suspend some of the ring leaders of the Bar.  Not lagging behind, the High Court ordered Central Police Forces to guard its premises.  The state police, which watched as a mute spectator and never prevented the siege of the Chief Justice’s court, contended shamelessly before the Supreme Court that it was providing good security. 

The apex court rightly told it to shut its shop.  The High Court sent out shockwaves when a rape convict was asked to go in for mediation with the victim to explore the possibility of a compromise.  After a huge protest, the order was promptly withdrawn. That the convict was acquitted on a technical reason, found in one paragraph of a two-and-a-half page order by another judge, is another story.  

While permitting Aadal Paadal (to be read as dances performed by ill-clad women) in a village temple at Trichy, another judge directed the department to enforce a dress code for devotees in all temples in Tamil Nadu.  He did not even spare the children who were asked to be brought ‘completely covered.’  That the department promptly issued a circular is an irony.  

The attempts to save the Anna Library for which two commissioners were appointed to report on the ills plaguing it came as an oxygen mask.  A full bench, headed by Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, ruled that no water bodies, including the disused ones, shall be allowed to be encroached upon by anyone. This was a welcome decision and timely reminder of the danger faced by coastal Tamil Nadu in the recent floods. But with no safeguard of an alternative site being provided to the poor who have built their shelters there, the decision will displace thousands from their abodes and bring another tsunami in their lives. 

While everyone was baying for the blood of the juvenile offender in the December 16 Delhi gangrape case and the central government succumbing to such pressures by bringing an amendment to the Juvenile Justice Act, little do people realise that the Act has three dimensions.  Apart from reforming the child who is in conflict with the law, it also provides for the rehabilitation and care of neglected and abandoned children.  

Thanks to this realisation by the Division Bench, headed by Justice Ramasubramanian, 89 girl children were rescued from an unregistered home in Trichy and attempts are being made to rehabilitate them.  This was one of the moments from this year that sparkled.  In short, the Madras High Court cannot claim ‘All’s well in 2015’.