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ALettertoLawMinister
including Justice Indu Malhotra,
out of the total of 25? Maharashtra
with five judges has a greater
representation. Uttar Pradesh and
Karnataka have two each. True, there
is only one person from your state as
a judge of the Supreme Court. The
point is that nobody sees them as
representatives of states. They are on
the Bench because they are eligible to
hear all kinds of cases and give their
verdicts without being partial to any
caste or creed or language or region.
I am sorry to say that you are the
first to see Supreme Court judges as
representatives of states.
You say that appointing Justice KM
Joseph would be unfair to other judges
of the high courts. You are absolutely
wrong on this. He is already a Chief
Justice of a High Court. So he should
be compared with chief justices of high
courts, not judges of high courts. You
did it deliberately to show Justice
Joseph in a poorer light.
Did Justice Joseph ask the
Collegium to choose him? No, it was
the Collegium which chose him in its
abundant wisdom. While choosing
judges, the Collegium did not go by
seniority alone. In fact, it went by
merit alone. I agree that merit is
often an opinion. You may find Modi
a great leader but there are millions
of people who find him a disastrous
leader. It is all a matter of opinion.
You have brought up the
subject of giving representation to
Scheduled Castes and Scheduled
Tribes. Having mentioned it, do
you want reservation for SC and
ST categories at the Supreme Court
level? I still remember how the then
President KR Narayanan, who was
also, incidentally, from Kerala, was
pilloried when he wrote a letter to
the CJI in which he gently suggested
the need for representation of Dalits
in the Supreme Court.
I personally would be happy if you
can persuade your party to introduce
reservation for SCs and STs in the
Supreme Court and High Courts.
If you try, you will find yourself
banished from the BJP. Now having
said this, is Justice KM Joseph a
hindrance for giving representation
to such categories of people? The
Supreme Court has a total of 31 posts
of judge. I do not have to tell you that
six posts of judge are vacant and
you can persuade the Collegium to
recommend the names of Scheduled
Castes and Scheduled Tribes to fill all
the vacant posts, if necessary. By the
way, the first Scheduled Caste person
to become the Chief Justice of India
was from Kerala.
A poor lawyer can be judged by the
extraneous issues he brings forward
for want of valid points, while making
his argument in a court of law. How
truly the Bard had said that “sound
and fury signify nothing”!
We all know why you have rejected
the Collegium’s proposal to appoint
Justice KM Joseph. I wish you had the
guts to say it. It is his verdict in 2016
against the dismissal of the Congress-
led Uttarakhand government that has
angered you and your party.
Do you know, to quote the Bard
again, that he is more sinned against
than sinning? Anybody who has read
the verdict in the SR Bommai vs
Union of India case on Centre-state
relations knows only too well that the
floor of the House was the only forum
where a government’s majority could
be tested.
Justice Joseph’s verdict clearly
upheld the judicial principle that the
Governor of Uttarakhand should have
allowed the Chief Minister to prove
36 | May 2018 | www.smartgovernance.in