Date:23/12/2002 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2002/12/23/stories/2002122300401004.htm

Opinion - Letters to the Editor

A faulty legacy

The new Chief Justice of India, V.N. Khare, while emphasising the need to deal with the ``rotten fish'' in the judiciary, talked in contradictory terms when he commented that the present system of appointment and removal of judges was working well. Our faulty system, inherited from the British, has the only remedy of impeachment by Parliament of guilty judges of the higher courts. It is ineffective. The British provided such immunity to shield judges from being punished in the context of India's freedom struggle. The same provisions have been retained in the Indian Constitution. It is not clear why the Constitution has not been amended to provide for a simple mechanism to probe complaints against judges of higher courts, a necessity as pointed out by the erstwhile CJI, G.B. Pattanaik.

Subhash Chandra Agrawal,

Delhi