This article analyses the track record of Justice N V Ramana as the Chief Justice of India on the metrics of judicial appointments, progress on major constitutional challenges, and transparency in the exercise of the CJI’s prerogative as the master of roster. The article argues that on these metrics, there was only marginal improvement over the track record of his immediate predecessors.
Holding the executive accountable, a constitutional responsibility, seems to be set aside again in the recently concluded monsoon session of Parliament.
Twelve months after measures to fight COVID-19 forced courts in India to suspend in-person hearings and move online, the Supreme Court finds itself facing increased pendency and demands to restart in-person hearings. Apart from the increased backlog, the Court also finds itself with fewer judges and no immediate nominations in the pipeline to fill the gaps. The incoming Chief Justice of India will therefore have to address a range of issues that fundamentally affect the Court’s basic functioning.
"Today these are the rights of a working woman, but they set a precedent for the decimation of fundamental rights of all citizens and not just those who are already disadvantaged."
Given that the Chief Justice of India composes panels and assigns cases to judges, unlike in systems where cases are randomly assigned to avoid bias or where apex constitutional courts sit in plenary sessions, the question of how the CJI is appointed is crucial. This article seeks to answer this question by empirically investigating whether the seniority norm existed prior to the establishment of the Supreme Court of India - specifically, in the high courts of Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Allahabad, Patna, and in the Federal Court of India.
The manner in which contempt proceedings are often initiated at the drop of a hat by some aggrieved members of the judiciary makes one wonder whether this tendency is not becoming comparable to the invocation of the blasphemy law by the religious establishment in Pakistan.
