A nearly two-year-long deadlock has ended over the appointment of a set of new judges to the Supreme Court. Word going around is that India could expect to have three new women judges at the apex court and the first woman Chief Justice there a while later from among this list. These are welcome developments and the last word on the appointments is expected from the Centre soon.
When Chief Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde retired recently — from where the present CJI NV Ramana took off — he had visualized a scene of the nation having a woman as Chief Justice in the near future. One of three new women judges stands a chance to be the CJI, though for a short term in view of the age constraint. While there is wide media blitz about this, a question that could arise is, why had no woman ever become CJI in the past 70 years of Independent India; and this, even as women have been accorded equal rights and a few women had become judges at various levels. Of significance is Pakistan where the judiciary is perceivably more independent which is set to have its first woman judge next month and a woman CJI could be a reality there too in later years.
The judicial system in India famously has its flaws. The vacancies in the judiciary are many and crores of undecided cases have clogged the justice dispensation system. A national judicial services commission to draw in the best brains to the judicial system remains a far cry even though the second UPA government had taken a decision, which was sadly not followed up by the two terms of the Modi government. The nearly two years’ delay in processing the names for the Supreme Court vacancies was caused by a stand taken by Justice R Nariman as a member of the Collegium since 2019 that a consensus is not possible as long as two senior-most judges – one each from Karnataka and Tripura – were not named first in the list. The issue apparently had political overtones. It is good that the issue was overcome. It is hoped that there will be no further delay in making the final decisions, so that the judiciary’s work could be carried forward in a smoother manner. It is also important that, considering the heavy backlog of cases at various levels, the rest of the judge vacancies too are filled without further delay.
