Monday Thoughts

Some interesting thoughts on this last Monday of June 2019.

1 Recently Chief Justice of India ( CJI) Ranjan Gogoi wrote letters to PM Narendra Modi, regarding the  issue of pending cases in various High Courts (HC) across the country and in Supreme Court (SC). In two of the letter CJI emphasise to increase the strength of SC judges which is currently at 31 and raise the retirement age of HC judges from 62 to 65. CJI has requested top priority on passage of constitutional amendment bills which will be required for increasing the strength of SC judges. In an another letter he has sought the revival of tenure appointments of retired HC and SC judges, so that they can be assigned long pending cases.

Kudos to CJI for very thoughtful recommendations given to govt for the clearance of long pending cases in HCs and SC, some time I wonder is Rajan Gogoi the same man who along with other 3 SC judges held a press conference last January to complain about then CJI Dipak Misra and blurting out so many things against govt.

Agreed, long pending case lists in courts across the country is a huge numbers, may run into lakhs. Even SC  has a pendency of approx 58,000 cases, and it is only recently SC attained the full strength of 31 Judges. There are 25 HCs in the country and they currently face a shortage of 399 Judges as per their sanctioned strength which is almost 37%. Even CJI’s recommendation of raising the retirement age from 62 to 65 should be looked by govt immediately. Even retirement age of SC judges should also be increased.

Asking for increasing the strength of SC judges will be a tricky matter, as most of the time SC’s strength is below par for want of  judges who are  qualified and well versed in constitutional matter. In my opinion , presently SC is hearing the cases which are not very important in nature. The cases like granting bail- if a political leader or some business tycoon gets arrested and refused a bail by lower courts, then he approaches SC. Is this the matter for SC to decide. The SC should ideally concern itself with the matters of constitution, and not with trivial cases. Secondly if lower courts are better equipped to handle the cases then certainly there will be lesser load on SC.

The CJI’s suggestion of appointment of retired judges on short term basis (may be few years) should be considered by govt . These temporary appointments will help bringing down the list of long pending cases, but the care must be taken that this system does not become permanent, otherwise all the retiring judges will be standing in the queue for this type of appointment. The remuneration for this type of appointment should be fixed with no perks attached.

But the most important issue still is appointment of judges, so many times we have seen the deadlock between Judiciary panel who recommend judges  appointments and law ministry, that there is an inordinate delay in the appointment. This procedure should also be streamlined.

2 Cricket World Cup- On Saturday both New Zealand and India, who are still unbeaten teams in this world Cup, snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. India defeated Afghanistan and New Zealand defeated West Indies, India’s victory came in last over and New Zealand’s in 49^th over.

Batting first India could score only 224 runs in their allotted 50 overs, with only Kohli and Kedar Jadhav scoring 50+ runs. The Indian batsmen found scoring difficult against the sustained spin attack of Afghanistan and slow nature of pitch. Afghanistan started their reply in a systematic manner, although they were losing wickets at regular interval but they are always within the reachable striking rate. It was in the last 2 overs that game turned away from them, when the 49^th over started they needed 21 runs from 12 balls, with Nabi going strong it was achievable target, but Jasprit Bumrah restricted them with his controlled length balls and they could score only 5 runs in that over. So in last over they needed 16 runs, and bowler was Mohd Shami. First ball of the over was hit for 4 by Nabi, 2^nd ball he tried to hit a sixer but was caught in the long, and in the next 2 balls also yielded wickets. So Shami claimed hat trick and India won the match.

In case of New Zeland, batting first they were 2 down for no score but their captain Kane Williamson (146) and Ross Taylor(69) saved them and they finished at 291 in 50 overs. In reply West indies were always within strike rate with Gayle (82) and Hetmyer (52) contributing in early stages and in the later stage it was Carlos Brathwaite who did the bulk of scoring, but in the last ball of 49^th over Carlos skied the ball very hard and everyone thought it is going for six for West Indies win, but alas the ball was caught just inside the boundary by the fielder. So West Indies lost the match by 5 runs but everybody’s sympathy was with Brathwaite,  and felt that West Indies did not deserve to lose this match.

Awaiting your views/feed backs/comments

Anil Malik

Mumbai, India

24^th Jun 2019