New Delhi: The art of judging must be free of social and political pressure and from the inherent biases that human beings hold, Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud said on Sunday in a Ceremonial Bench, marking the 75 years of Supreme Court.
Addressing the Ceremonial Bench, the CJI pointed out how the Constitution entrenches several institutional safeguards for an independent judiciary, such as a fixed retirement age and a bar against the alteration of the salary of judges after their appointment.
However, these constitutional safeguards are not in themselves sufficient to ensure an independent judiciary, as the CJI mentioned while recommending that, "an independent judiciary does not merely mean the insulation of the institution from the executive and the legislature branches but also the independence of individual judges in the performance of their roles as judges."
"The art of judging must be free of social and political pressure and from the inherent biases that human beings hold. Efforts are being made from within the institution to educate and sensitise judges across courts to unlearn their subconscious attitudes inculcated by social conditioning on gender, disability, race, caste and sexuality," CJI Chandrachud said.
Over the pending cases in the Supreme Court, CJI remarked that there has to be a radical change in the approach to decision-making. He said that the increase in access to courts does not necessarily translate into access to justice.
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Highlighting that the court has, over the course of years, faced immense difficulty keeping up with the surge in the number of cases.
"Currently, a total of 65,915 registered cases are pending before the Supreme Court. Much as we would like to reassure ourselves that the mounting pile represents the faith of citizens in the line, we need to ask hard questions about what needs to be done. There has to be a radical change in the approach to decision-making," CJI said.
"In our desire to ensure justice in each individual case, should we risk the court becoming dysfunctional," CJI raised.
He further added, "I believe that we have to have a common understanding of how we argue and how we decide and above all, on the cases which we select for decision making."
"If we do not make hard choices and take difficult calls to resolve these pressing issues the euphoria generated from the past may well be short-lived," CJI said.
While pointing out the positive approach taken by the top court towards decreasing the pendency of cases, CJI said that In 2023, 49,818 cases were registered; 2,41,594 cases were listed for hearing, and 52,221 cases were disposed of, which is more than the number of cases registered.
Praising technology, he said that "Technology has been a steadfast ally in decongesting pending matters. The electronic filing of cases have reduced the time between filing cases and curing defects."
