Judicial Independence and Accountability: In View of the Case of J. Soumitra Sen

Abstract

Judiciary is deemed to be a image of blindfolded justice holding balanced scales embodying the idea of impartiality and fair setup in it. This paper is a humble attempt to understand the importance of “Judicial independence” to maintain the ‘image’ of judiciary and will try to look into the rationality of judicial accountability which has become a issue for debate today and will further deliberate on formulation of various laws in this arena. Many fingers have been pointed towards the procedure of selection, appointment and transfer of judges with the questions being raised about their being honest before, during and after their tenure. This paper also tries to find out the flaws in the impeachment procedure, appointment procedure and the much awaited Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill 2010 and insights have been taken from the Constitution Review Commission Report of 2002. Since judges are ‘Justice deliverers’, the level of trust reposed in them by the common citizens is quite high. It becomes a mandatory responsibility of them to maintain it. The paper will also try to answer the questions triggered by a recent case of J. Soumitra Sen: Is the judiciary holding the same value, as it had earlier? Is the judiciary abusing its privilege of judicial independence? Is the judiciary responsible and can it be held accountable? Hence, the author feels that there is an urgent need for efficient laws to be formulated and effective complaint mechanism to be triggered so as to avoid the occurrence of these unfortunate cases.