HTTP://WWW.UPSCPORTAL.COM POLITICAL NEWS ELECTION COMMISSION AT 60 After overseeing 15 general elections to the Lok Sabha, the Election Commission of India, in its diamond jubilee year, can with justifiable pride claim to have nursed and st rengthened the electoral processes of a nascent democracy. The successes have not been consiste nt or uniform, but over the last six decades the ECI managed to make the worlds largest democratic p rocess freer and fairer. One of the instruments of this success is surely the Model Code of C onduct. D esigned to offer a level playing field to all political parties, it has been used to neu tralise many of the inherent advantages of a ruling party in an election. Although the model code wa s originally based on political consensus and does not still enjoy statutory sanction, it served as a handy tool for placing curbs on the abuse of the official machinery for campaigning. While ther e have been complaints of excess in the sometimes mindless application of the model code, th e benefits have generally outweighed the costs. After the Election Commission was made a three-member body, its functioning beca me more institutionalised and more transparent with little room for the caprices of an o verbearing personality. The diamond jubilee is also an occasion for the ECI to look at the challenges ah ead, especially those relating to criminalisation of politics and use of money power in elections. Neither of these issues is new. What is clear is that the efforts of the Commission to t ackle them have generally lacked conviction and have not yielded any significant results. Althou gh the political system and players must take a major share of the blame, and the ECIs powers are constitutionally circumscribed, these will have to be noted as failures. The dominant role of mon ey in elections, which is taking newer and more outrageous forms, is deeply worrying. Instances o f politicians paying for news coverage and bribing voters were widespread in the 2009-2010 ele ctions. Anotherpressing issue relates to the powers of the Chief Election Commis sioner vis-À-vis the two Election Commissioners. CEC Navin Chawla has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ask ing that the Constitution be amended to equalise the removal process for the CEC and ECs. Against the background of the unseemly controversy over the previous CECs attempt to have his colleague removed,an amendment that makes it explicit that the ECs too can be removed only through impeachment is an institutional imperative COMMERCIAL DIVISION OF THE HIGH COURT The provisions in the Commercial Division of High Courts Bill, 2009 that seek to give special and fast-track treatment to a certain class of cases has first to be exa mined to see whether it violates the fundamental principle of suprema lex. The Bill has as its foundatio n a special provision to establish commercial divisions in courts with the objective of achi eving quicker disposal by expert tribunals of commercial disputes that involve a sum of Rs.5 c rore or more. The idea is to facilitate their early disposal so that the rich who are involved in such disputes do not have to wait for too long for a final adjudication. 1 HTTP://WWW.UPSCPORTAL.COM The Bill is based on this principle of facilitation in favour of the richer amo ng litigants who through a special body of the High Court and other relative clauses can get thei r disputes adjudicated and quickly disposed of. Meanwhile, the poor person whose litigation mostly involves a value that is below Rs.5 crore has to wait for the outcome at the Munsiffs Cour t, the District Court, the High Court, the Letters Patent Appeal and the Supreme Court. In India these proceedings, tier upon tier, take decades before a final judgment comes. Often i t takes more than a generation. It is obvious that there is discrimination writ large here between two classes o f litigants. This will also reduce the number of judges available to hear ordinary items of litiga tion, commercial, labour and land disputes that involve a jurisdictional value that is less than R s. 5 crore. Equality is a fundamental right under Article 14. Social justice really means th at justice, justices and justicing have an equal obligation to render early justice. To divi de social justice into two categories, the rich being given special facilities for early justice and th e not-so-rich being forced to wait, is violative of Article 14. It also constitutes breach of social and economic clauses. APEX COURT CHALLENGES HIGH COURT VERDICT The Supreme Court is believed to have filed an appeal before itself challenging the judgment of the Delhi High Court holding that the office of the Chief Justice of India ca me under the ambit of the RTI Act. The apex court, through Attorney General G E Vahanvati, had aggressively argued that information on the assets of Supreme Court judges was held by the CJI in a perso nal capacity, did not come under the public domain. The Delhi High Court declared that the judicia ry, including the Chief Justice of India, accountable to the common man under the Right to Informa tion Act, saying sunlight is the best disinfectant for the judiciary in a democratic society. The H igh Court further said to its peer Supreme Court, well-defined and publicly known standards and pro cedures complement, rather than diminish, the notion of judicial independence. Democracy expects openness and openness is concomitant of free society. Accountability of the judi ciary cannot be seen in isolation. Wielders of power legislative, executive and judicial are ent rusted to perform their functions on condition that they account for their stewardship to the people who authorise them to exercise such power, The CJI cannot be a fiduciary vis-a-vis judges of the Supreme Court. The judges o f the Supreme Court hold independent office, there is no hierarchy in their judicial f unctions, which places them at a different plane than the CJI. The assets declarations are not f urnished by the SC judges to the CJI in a private relationship, but in discharge of the constitutio nal obligation, the bench said. Reminding the Supreme Court that the CJI is a public authority under the RTI Act , the bench observed: Chief Justice of India besides discharging the prominent role of head of judiciary also performs a multitude of tasks specifically assigned to him under the Consti tution or various enactments. To the persistent stand from the Supreme Court that its own resolutions were not legally binding but only moral in nature, the three-judge bench told the apex court that it was better to abide by judicial values and ethics prescribed by the May 7, 1997 Full Court Res olution of the Supreme Court, which calls for the disclosure of assets, than wait for Parliamen t to compel judges to disclose their assets and undermine judicial independence. The court said if an entry level Magistrate is bound by the 1997 resolution to ann ually disclose his assets, why not judges of the high courts and the Supreme Court. As regards a ccountability and independence, it cannot possibly be contended that Judicial Magistrate at th e entry level in the 2 HTTP://WWW.UPSCPORTAL.COM judicial hierarchy is any less accountable or independent than the judge of the high court or the Supreme Court. If the declaration of assets by a subordinate judicial officer is seen as essential to enforce accountability, then the need for declaration by judges of the constitut ional courts is even greater, the bench said. The independence of judiciary, the bench said, has to take second place to trans parency in the justice delivery system as even a single dishonest judge can cause the public to l ose faith in the entire judiciary. Judicial independence is not the personal privilege of the individual judge, but a responsibility cast on him. Public confidence in the administration of justice is imperative for its effectiveness, because ultimately ready acceptance of a judicial verdict alone g ives relevance to the judicial system, the bench observed. It is supposed that the appeal against the January 12 verdict had been filed aft er there was unanimity among judges of the apex court on challenging it. CJI K G Balakrishnan had consultation with other apex court judges on the issue and the grounds taken by it in the appeal were identical to the stand taken in the High Court th at disclosure of information held by the CJI would hamper independence of the judiciary. Attorney General would argue the matter on behalf of the apex court registry whe n it is expected to be listed for hearing shortly. The apex court would seek stay of the operation of the High Court direction and would plead for referring it before a larger Bench or t o the Constitution Bench. ORISSA HIGH COURT JUDGE DEMOTED In a rare case, a sitting judge of the Orissa High Court has been demoted to a d istrict and sessions judge. He has now been posted as district judge of Kalahandi. The decision to demote Justice L K Mishra was taken when the Supreme Court colle gium refused to recommend his case for continuation as Additional Judge of the Orissa High Court after his indictment in a case pertaining to alleged tampering of marks of candidates for the post of judicial officers in the state. DINAKARAN IMPEACHMENT PANEL Supreme Court judge V.S. Sirpurkar will head a three-member committee that will investigate the grounds for impeachment of Karnataka Chief Justice P.D.