“Law and order are the medicine of the body politic and when the body politic gets sick medicine must be administered”
~ Dr B R Ambedkar
By Surya pratap
Justice N.V. Ramana is India’s 48th Chief Justice. He is the second Chief Justice of India from Andhra Pradesh. In Golkanath’s case against the government, Andhra Pradesh’s first Chief Justice, Justice Koka Subba Rao, gave a very strong judgement, saying that India does not have the power to amend the Fundamental Right. Following his retirement as Chief Justice, he ran for President as a candidate in the race.
Justice N.V. Ramana is very active; shortly after taking the oath, he went to court and held a meeting. They have a very calm and mature demeanour. When the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh made a wild accusation, he remained silent. He came from a farming family and became a judge with his own abilities. He had a difficult time as a student. After seeing the infringement of civil liberties during the Emergency, he went into generalism, worked for a Telugu newspaper, and then went into law, eventually becoming the additional attorney general of Andhra Pradesh.
If you look at Justice N V Ramana’s decision, you’ll note that he favours Positivist and Activist Judicial Restraint at the same time. But, when the situation calls for it, he never hesitates to assert his authority and issue out-of-the-box orders, resorting to judicial activism. He was appointed as a Supreme Court judge by the UPA government in February 2014. Narendra Modi, India’s new Prime Minister took office in May 2014.
Prior to becoming Chief Justice of India, Justice Ranjan Gogoi spoke about the role of judges in democracy at an Indian Express function, saying that “Noisy judges are very important for democracy”. He never found a loud judge during his time at CJI, but he did invent sealed cover jurisprudence. He has stated consistently that fragile human rights should be secured, whether abuses are committed by the state or by anti-social elements. Last year, he gave a speech to the Madras Bar Association in which he said, “It is an important quality for a judge to withstand all the pressures and odds, to stand strong against all obstacles”. He demonstrated in his personal life that he can overcome any challenge.
Justice Ramana issued significant rulings
Justice Ramana ruled that a Congress speaker in Karnataka who defected to the BJP and became an MLA could not be re-elected to the assembly for the remainder of the term and could not be appointed as a minister. Justice Ramana gave a clear judgement, looking at the Constitution and the Representation of People Act and concluding that there is no clause in Scheduled 10 of the Constitution that allows the Speaker to exclude a disqualified MLA from running for re-election, so the Speaker’s order was overturned.
You could not become a minister until the 91st Amendment, and you can’t now. It is fair to expect that the defectors gained from this order if you arrive without an election after the election, but it is not the duty of the judiciary to change the following. You’ll notice that it’s a Judicial Restricted Decision, and it’s a Positivist Decision, so it’s difficult to criticise it based on law’s fine analysis.
After Internet services in Kashmir were shut down for months and Kashmiris were cut off from the rest of the country, Justice Ramana issued an order declaring “the right to the Internet is a fundamental right”. I understand that this precedent-setting decision on article 19 is a thorough and through decision, and that you must publish any order you issue, and that any limitations on freedom of speech and expression imposed under article 19 (2) of the constitution must be reasonable.
Then the question of whether the office of the Chief Justice of India is a public authority and therefore comes under the RTI had been pending in the Supreme Court for years. We are not a public authority, according to the Supreme Court. The National Information Commission disregarded the Supreme Court’s ruling and declared you are public authority. The Supreme Court lost the case when it went to the Delhi High Court for an appeal, and the Delhi High Court ruled, “The Office of the Chief Justice of India is a public authority, and falls under the purview of RTI”. After that, nothing happened for few years. Within itself, the Supreme Court is a party to an appeal to the Supreme Court. The case was resolved by Justice Ramana. “The office of the Chief Justice of India is a public authority and falls in the purview of RTI,” he said as the judge on the bench.
Expectation and priorities of Justice N.V. Ramana
To begin with, I believe Justice N.V. Ramana is an active, dynamic, and productive person who will work rapidly to vaccinate not only the judges of the Indian judicial system, from the Supreme Court to the lower courts, but also the entire court and its workers. Second, it seems to me that Justice Ramana’s top priority will be to move from the virtual to the real court. The litigant is becoming a big concern, and routine court physicals must be resumed.
I believe that because he has insisted throughout his life that “Right to Justice” must extend to those at the back of the line, he would make every effort to ensure that the last man in line has access to justice, and he plays a high value on civil liberties. He has the ability to be very stern when it comes to human rights abuses. Another big problem with our judicial system today is that the judicial infrastructure is very weak, owing to the fact that we invest very little on it.
As Chief Justice of India, I understand that Justice N.V. Ramana will work to strengthen the judicial infrastructure. He has already stated that a National Judicial Infrastructure Corporation should be established, and he will make every effort to see that it is established.
Judicial appointment
The most pressing question facing the judiciary is judicial vacancies. In his judicial appointment, he faces a significant challenge from the collegium he would lead. Justice Lalit, Justice Chandrachud, Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman, and Justice Khanwilkar are the other Mumbai representatives.
It would be a tough job, but I am certain that Justice N.V. Ramana has the ability to persuade; during his term, all Supreme Court vacancies will be filled, and he will make every effort to fill even the highest vacancy on the High Court.
Conclusion
I understand that the country hopes that the new Chief Justice of India will restore people’s faith in the Supreme Court, and that the Supreme Court will regain all of its former glory. And the entire country will regard this Court as a defender of our fundamental rights. This court would uphold the Constitution’s supremacy. I wish him the best of luck in his new position as Chief Justice of India. I recognise that Justice N.V. Ramana is taking over the country’s judiciary at a very challenging time. There are some significant challenges ahead of him, but the more I see him, the more confident I am that he will succeed.
Surya Pratap is a a student of law at Galgotias University.
