Prof. Kali Dass
In a democracy, there are four pillars one is the Judiciary, second is the Legislature, third is the Executive and fourth is the Media. Topic to be discussed shall be judiciary as its domain.
When an individual / group of persons failed to get justice through the Govt. or in the society some influential persons who are always with their muscle force to snatch the property of the others or try their level best to suppress the weakers, these weakers are forced to knock the door of the judiciary.
Though there is a freedom for an individual / or group of persons to fight the case at their own level with out hiring the legal counsel; but generally these hired advocates for the cases do not appear on the hearing dates because of one reason or the other and the client loses its case or he/she in one way or the other is pressurised for more payments of beyond the fixed ones fees. Once the advocate is hired he/she should appear on the hearing date which is not mandatory by the judiciary system only moral code of conduct is the hope that the advocate will appear before the Judge on the hearing date. In the very beginning of the case, it depends upon the ‘Will’ of the hired counseller (Advocate). So there is always an apprehension of “losing the case”. Sometimes the hired advocates and the Govt. advocates go into a mutual understanding business as it happened in case of reservation in promotion in JK High Court that Govt. advocates did not appear before the High Court and the case went against the category people. So the working of councellers, both private and Govt. is totally in a loosing bonds like bubble gums and one can not have full confidence over the Court in view of the working style of advocates who are not bound by the judiciary system.
The other point is that if luck favours a man and after a great harness and hard working with lot of lucrative expenditure, man wins the case. What is the guarantee that the executive body will implement this Court order. Mostly the High Courts and Apex Courts orders are not implemented. Now a trend has gone into Govt. Deptts. to disobey the Court’s orders and make even the Mockery. Stay granted by the Apex Court over the JK High Court order for striking down the reservation in promotion is licking the dust in the civil secretariat.
These verdicts only become a debating agenda or a protesting tools in the hands of the public, otherwise a verdict of the High Court or Apex Court if is not implemented then the case becomes the same as it was before the entry of the case in the revered Court.
In a democracy, judiciary is one of the four pillars and also the last hope of the individual. If under such circumstances the Court verdicts are not implemented which otherwise means that verdicts are only verdicts and are not mandatory for implementation, then what is the need of judiciary in this case. Apex Court’s Judgment of 1992 on Mandal Report has been implemented through out the country and in all the states except J and K State. Then a question arises whether Apex Court’s powers are limited only up to Punjab border Lakhanpur and it can not have its influence in the J and K State as well as J and K High Court.
Keeping in view such hurdles, judiciary must make both the things mandatory (a) Hired advocate must be made bound to appear on the hearing date and it must be made mandatory in the judiciary system. If somebody fails to act deliberately / violate wilifully, his/her licence must be cancelled forth with. (b) Judgment of all the Courts must have mandatory implementation. If both things go as are going in the normal way at present, it is thought that the judiciary would only be a burden on the public as the legislature and the executive are all in all in states / country and this pillar of judiciary already seems to be in the broken form.