Mangaluru: Close on the heels of NewsKarnataka.com bringing to light the serious issue of foul play in appointment of judges, former High Court of Bombay judge Justice M F Saldanha has written to Governor of Karnataka expressing his anguish over the issue.
On 23-08-2016, NewsKarnataka.com had published about the said issue in its article titled ‘Shocking: Foul play in appointment of judges comes to fore in Karnataka’ and in response to the same Justice Saldanha had written a letter stating that the matter becomes all the more serious because these are appointments for Judicial posts where absolute integrity is an essential requirement and this is a serious reflection on the honesty of the candidates concerned who will then continue as judges for many years and commit the worst form of atrocities mainly covering for illegalities.
In his letter Justice Saldanha had urged the Governor of Karnataka for his immediate intervention.
The selection process was conducted by the Karnataka High Court and after completion, a notification No.CJRC.1/2014 dated January 7, 2016, of the Registrar General, High Court of Karnataka, 142 candidates were selected as suitable in order of merit, which was prepared on the basis of the marks secured in the Competitive Written examination and Viva-Voce. The selection process was held during September and December 2015.
The former judge in his letter to the governor points out, that the responsibility devolves on the Chief Justice and the entire set of Judges of the Karnataka high court since the selection process is over and fraud is unearthed in selection of Judges. The list of selected judges comes up for scrutiny before the full court meeting of all the judges and if, the same is approved, the government invariably accepts the list.
Raj Bhavan should do a back reference to the high court, along with a copy of his letter and an explanation should be sought or else, fraud of this type will be repeated, states Justice Saldanha who in his letter adds that the state also needs to be pulled up, for placing the list before the governor without cross checking the track record and integrity of the selected list of candidates. Placing the selected list of candidates, before the governor for his consent, the state government makes the Excellency assume that the selected list of candidates are properly scrutinised. Having misled the governor the state has to submit its explanation in this case, he argued.
The RTI enquiry reveals that the Registrar General of Karnataka High court, has himself in writing admitted that there is a criminal enquiry against 22 of the selected candidates who were allowed to go through the process of selection knowing full well that there is a criminal proceeding pending against them in the process of selection as Assistant Public prosecutors, and the crime no.59/2014 was filed in the Karnataka Lokayukta, pending investigation, the judge has said and further stated, that this is s total and complete disqualification of a candidate for Judicial Post for which he has set out the reason in his letter.
The former judge states that there are numerous instance were candidates who were on the wrong side of the law managed to get themselves appointed to judicial post. Once they become judges, the police or any authority find it embarrassing to investigate against a sitting judge and the investigation automatically folds up and this has been in 100% of the cases. The Judicial appoint is used to sabotage the due process of law and whitewash criminal misconduct and therefore the former judge points out that appointment of such candidates in question, is against public interest, and a direct attempt at interfering with due process of law.
Most importantly in the event of candidate in question becomes a judge and is charge sheeted or any adverse order is made it would render the judge as tainted and every order passed by such judicial officer would be rendered void. This would involve in proceedings in hearing of several cases. The courts are already choking under the arrears and if this happens this will be a disaster to the judiciary, which the former judge expresses with great concern in his letter.
The Chief Justice and Supreme Court have repeatedly been directing the government to make appointments in keeping with the list submitted to the judiciary . I have repeatedly point out that in this back ground, it would be wrong to blame the government with the selection process and process of recommendations definitely flawed, which is pointed out to the governor by Justice Saldanha.
Appointments to the sub-ordinate judiciary, there is a definitely need for setting up a high powered professional body entitled State Judicial services Appointment Commission to handle the entire process of selection. All this should be handed over to the high powered professional body, which should consists of retired judges and bureaucrats with Judiciary acting as monitoring authority
High caliber judges of integrity are not only excellent in quick disposal of cases, but also for culling useless litigation. The Central Government and the Hon’ble Prime minister have been making very determined and positive efforts at reform and as requested the Excellency to forward his suggestions to the state and central level Law minister which Justice Saldanha has pointed out in his letter.
A copy of the news report of Foul play in selection of Judges, that appeared in NewsKarnataka.com was handed over to S.L.Dutta, Chairman, National Human Rights Commission, and his attention was drawn by this reporter, and the former Chief Justice of India readily accepted to bring it to the knowledge of the Judiciary with a report after going through the same in detail. S.L.Dutta had come to Mangaluru and he visited the district jail.