Restoring trust: Justice Khanna's stand against judicial misconduct and truth deficit

Guwahati, May 16: An exemplary feature of the short tenure of Sanjiv Khanna as the Chief Justice of India (CJI) was his endeavour to bring greater transparency into the judicial system, which, in recent years, has been subjected to adverse public scrutiny.

The CJI, who has just retired, recommended the removal of former Delhi High Court judge, Justice Yashwant Varma, after a top court-constituted panel confirmed allegations of discovery of cash from the latter's official residence. He, too, was the individual who had put the assets and liabilities of the justices of the Supreme Court in the public domain and published the collegium records on judges' appointments.

The assertions of Justice Khanna after many decades of service as a lawyer and judge, at his farewell ceremony organised by the Supreme Court Bar Association, therefore, need to be conscientiously mulled over. He had stated that he was bothered by what he considered to be "the truth deficit in our profession," explaining the phrase as the "mistaken belief that unless the evidence is padded up, the case would not succeed."

Elucidating on his statement, he referred to Mahatma Gandhi, who equated truth with God and considered it to be an ideal to strive for. Unfortunately, in the contemporary milieu, we come across concealment and deliberate misstatement of facts by lawyers in the mistaken belief that unless some padding is done in evidence, a case would not succeed.

This truth deficit makes the task of a judge, who is a seeker of the truth, much harder! The irony is that such attempts at distorting the truth rarely work. He called upon the lawyer community to prioritise truth and ethical conduct to maintain public trust, and stated that after retiring he himself would not take up any official assignment.

Apart from such a vital issue, Justice Khanna also dwelt on another aspect that is of increasing concern to the nation -the unsustainable backlog of untried cases. He justifiably expressed pride that under his tenure, the Supreme Court was able to achieve, for the first time in several years, a case clearance ratio of more than 100%.

It has achieved this by disposing of more cases than were filed, thereby perhaps giving us an inkling as to how to tackle the problem of the proliferation of untried cases. Another method he advocated was for litigants to attempt alternative dispute resolution modes like mediation.

Speaking at the same ceremony, his successor Justice BR Gavai commended Justice Khanna for demonstrating firm and principled leadership in addressing instances of judicial misconduct, which reflected both his judicial responsibility and personal integrity. The entire nation hopes that Justice Gavai, too, will follow the adherence to truth and honesty that had been the hallmark of his predecessor, and continue the endeavour to reset public perception of our judicial system onto the right track.