Supreme Court is chief justice-centric, image must change: Justice Oka
Justice Abhay S Oka on Friday called the Supreme Court a "chief justice-centric court" while advocating for a change in light of its composition of 34 judges coming from different regions of the country.
Bidding goodbye at an event organised by the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), Justice Oka said the Supreme Court and the high courts have neglected the trial and district courts which are the judiciary's backbone.
He said there was huge pendency in trial courts with some cases pending for 30 years.
"High courts function more democratically than the Supreme Court because there is an administrative committee of first five judges in place. Major decisions are taken by the administrative committee. In the last few years, I have found that the Supreme Court is Chief Justice-centric court, I think we need to change that," he said.
The judge went on, "The Supreme Court is a court of 34 judges who come from different areas of the country. Therefore, the image of the Chief Justice-centric court needs to be changed."
Earlier in the day, Justice Oka, at the ceremonial bench, said the Supreme Court is one court which can uphold constitutional liberties, the dream of the Constitution framers.
Responding to the rich tributes by lawyers, bar leaders, CJI BR Gavai and Justice AG Masih, a visibly-moved Justice Oka said, "I must confess, after hearing all that is said for last one hour and 20 minutes, I am speechless, and perhaps today is the first and last day of my professional career where I have not prevented anyone from talking, because I could not stop. I have seen such a great love and affection for me by the members of the bar that made me speechless."
During the SCBA function later in the day, Justice Oka said manual intervention in listing of selected matters should be reduced.
"People complain about why some cases are listed the next day and why other cases are pending after so many days. We cannot have a better listing unless we reduce manual intervention to the minimum. We have Artificial Intelligence technology and other software which can help in rational listing of cases," he said.
Justice Oka revealed that in his career spanning over two decades, he never delivered a dissenting judgment.
"During my entire tenure, I never delivered dissenting judgment. Neither my colleagues dissented. Only one exception happened two days back," he said.
The judge also clarified that he would not be giving interviews immediately after the retirement and would need some time for talking to the press.
"I have taken a stand that talking to the media while I am holding office is out of the question. I would never do that. I will need a cooling period of two to three months. The reason is that If I talk to the media today, my mind is full of emotions and I may end up saying something which I should not say. So I have requested them to give me some time so that I can be in a better frame of mind," Justice Oka said.
In a message to the bar, which was read out separately, Justice Oka said the Supreme Court completed 75 years of its existence on January 28 and instead of celebrating the occasion there is a need to introspect.
"Citizens of the country had very high expectations from this court. Though no one can deny the contribution of this court, my personal view is that the Supreme Court has not fulfilled the expectations of the citizens of India."
He underscored the cosmic pendency of 80,000 cases in the top court and said, "We have sanctioned strength of 34 judges. Even with the sanctioned strength, we are not in a position to control the arrears. Joint efforts of the Bar and the Bench are required to reduce the arrears."
