I write this in anguish. “Something is rotten” (not in the State of Denmark, as Hamlet said) but in the state of our higher judiciary. In fact, in different courts in the higher judiciary there are currently grave suspicions of wrong-doing by certain judges — judges who are appointed under the Constitution and who cannot be removed until they retire. In the Supreme Court they retire at age 65 and in the high courts at age 62.

The present chief justice of India has boldly taken the initiative and written to the prime minister that a particular judge of the Calcutta High Court be removed by a motion moved in Parliament. But the procedure for the removal of a judge is deliberately made slow and burdensome in our Constitution — rightly, in order to enable judges of the higher judiciary to discharge their functions “without fear or favour”. A motion signed by 50 MPs in the Rajya Sabha or 100 MPs in the Lok Sabha must first be moved on the floor of the House; then be referred to a committee of judges and jurists chosen either by the speaker of the Lok Sabha or by the chairman of the Rajya Sabha (in the House where the motion is introduced). After that the committee makes an investigation into the charges framed against a particular sitting judge, and makes a report. Even if that report concludes that the judge concerned is guilty of “proved misbehaviour” that is not the end of the matter. The motion has to be voted in Parliament and if two-thirds of the members present do not vote in its favour the motion is dropped. The great question is: what in the meanwhile? In the meanwhile, this sitting judge was not allotted any work by the then chief justice of Calcutta which was the right and proper thing to do.

... contd.