Hope Judiciary Will Overcome Belligerent Behavior Of Wayward Constituents Of Society: CJI Ranjan Gogoi

On Sunday, the Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi lay the foundation stone of an auditorium at the Gauhati High Court where he expressed his anguish over "belligerent and reckless behavior by a few individuals", a report from the Indian Express said.

He refrained from naming any individuals or groups and stressed on the significance of judiciary in reinstating public faith in the system. "I am hopeful that such incidents would turn out to be exceptions and that the strong traditions and ethos of our institution shall always assist our stakeholders to display resilience to overcome the belligerence of such wayward constituents", he said.

He opined that courts were institutions that kept the wheel of justice running and was quoted saying "Today, I feel compelled to assert that judges and judicial officers must remember that public faith and confidence, on which our institution lives and survives, is largely built on the basis of orders and judgments passed by us".

However, "if summons have not been served, how do my judges start the trial? This is my question to the executive. The responsibility of summoning solely lies with the executive arm of the government", he said while holding the executive equally responsible for the huge pendency of cases. "In India, we have a little over one thousand 50-year-old cases and above two lakh 25-year-old cases", he added.

He was hopeful that the government will accept his proposal to raise the age of retirement of high court judges from 62 to 65, just like his recent proposal pursuant to which the government increased the judges' strength in the Supreme Court from 30 to 33.

"The immediate result- there will be a freeze of retirement for three years. In these three years, we can try and fill up the 403 vacancies by good judges. This is my dream," CJI Gogoi said. He said that the same will ensure that cases are not pending in courts due to paucity of judges.

He also spoke about the importance of the auditorium of the Gauhati High Court and said that adequate opportunities for relaxation and leisure were significant to sustain an efficient judicial mechanism.

Talking about his home state Assam, he said "Assam is blessed with nature's bounty and is the abode of people and communities, having rich but immensely diverse traditions. It is such diversities of race, religion, culture that present unique challenges before the high court as well as the subordinate courts serving these areas".

CJI Gogoi has headed Supreme Court benches in significant cases like the Ayodhya Title Dispute and the National Register of Assam and is set to retire this year on November 7.