Meetings Between Government Head & Chief Justice Do Not Mean 'Some Deal Is Cracked': CJI DY Chandrachud

Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Chandrachud on Saturday said that whenever the heads of the government, be it in a State or at the Centre, meet the Chief Justice of the High Court or the Supreme Court, they do stick to the 'political maturity' and never would speak about a pending case.

"We do meet but that doesn't mean that there is some deal cracked. We have to be in dialogue with the Chief Minister (CM) of the State because they will have to provide budgets for the Judiciary. And this budget is not for the judges. If we do not meet and only rely on letters our work won't be done. But when we meet, trust me, there's a great deal of maturity in the political system and in those meetings, never in my experience, would a CM speak about a pending case," the CJI said.

Recently, the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to CJI's residence for Ganpati Puja had stirred a controversy.

The administrative relationship between the court and the government is different from the judicial work which the judges do. And same thing operates at the central level, the CJI emphasised.

"Administrative relationship between Supreme Court and the Government of the day is distinct from the judicial work done by the apex court. It is a tradition that the CM or the Chief Justice will meet each other on festivals or bereavement. But surely we must have the maturity to understand it has no bearing at all on our judicial work. We must understand that one will not 'adjust' anything in a meeting viewed by the public. We must accept that there has to be a continuing dialogue, not in terms of the work that we do as judges, not at all. Because, the work that we do as judges , we are completely independent. But in so many which ways, there is an intersection between work of the judiciary and government on the administrative side," CJI Chandrachud said.

The CJI was speaking at a 'lecture series' organised by a Marathi daily newspaper at the University of Mumbai.

On Judges' Vacations:

In a query about the criticism of the judiciary over their 'vacations' the CJI while highlighting the fact that he himself starts his daily work at 3:30 in the night, said that people must understand that the judges are overburdened with work and they need some time to ponder and think over the laws as their judgments define the future of our society.

The CJI pointed out that the judges in the American Supreme Court decide 181 cases in a year, whereas 181 cases are decided by the Indian Supreme Court judges only on Mondays. He further highlighted that the Indian Supreme Court decides around 50,000 cases per year.

"Our model is the access to justice. Often there is a question as to why seemingly small cases, say, of bail in cheating cases or grievous hurt come to our SC but my answer is, this is a people's court and no one must be denied access to justice. People in our society have a serious impact on denial of justice. In Singapore, judges are given minimum one weeks time to decide how they will be deciding an issue. But we do not have such a facility. We complete one work then we get the other one immediately," CJI Chandrachud said.

Speaking about the usual day in a judge's life, the CJI pointed out that he wakes up at 3:30AM and does his workout and other personal work and starts his actual work by 6:00AM.

"For Monday work, we need to read our papers on Sunday. On Saturdays, we complete our pending judgment's dictation work. For the 7 weeks vacation in May, we are working at least for 6 weeks by dictating judgments. What we are deciding today, the future depends on it. Our judgments will define the kind of society we will be in the next 75 years. So do we give time to our judges? Sufficient time to think and read about the law or do you just want them to be merely mechanical instruments in the statistical disposal of cases. Judges should get the time to think about what should be done for the society's progress etc." CJI Chandrachud stressed.

Unlike western countries, the work of judges gets multiplied as they go up in their career, both in terms of volumes and complexities.

"Judges are not gallivanting or goofing up in vacations. Judges are deeply committed to the work they do, even during vacations. No judge gets to enjoy even Saturday or Sunday. Judges go out for work like some function, some HC visit, legal aid work etc on weekends. Whenever I visit anywhere for some work, I try to return to home by Saturday itself so that I can complete my Sunday's work," Chandrachud said.

On Collegium:

On a question on whether the government considers the recommendations of the SC, the CJI pointed out that the Collegium system, allows courts and even the government at both State and Central levels, to take decisions on candidates for judgeship. He said that there is a continuous dialogue about the same between the judiciary and the government.

"In this process of consultative process, a dialogue, a consensus does emerge. And sometimes consensus doesn't take place but that is the part of the system and I think we must have the maturity to understand that this represents the strength of the system. There is a great deal of maturity in our dialogue. I can say that not a single proposal is pending with me. I ensure to forward the proposals, received, within a week to the government," CJI Chandrachud said.

Every institution has its positives and is capable of betterment and improvement. But the very fact that there are institutional improvements that are positive should not lead us to a conclusion that there is fundamentally something wrong in the institution. The fact that these institutions have stood the test of time for the last 75 years is a reason for us to trust our system, our democratic govt which helps our system develop, the CJI added.