IN Third World countries the judiciary evokes a God-like faith. People leave it to the judges to give them justice, even if it is delayed. The judges cannot allow even an iota of their credibility to be challenged.

Therefore, when there was a public demand in India that judges should declare their assets, they could not have evaded an issue they had been avoiding since independence.

India’s supreme court has unanimously passed a resolution that the judges should declare their assets and put them on the web. But then, the supreme court passed a similar resolution some 12 years ago to submit the judges’ list of assets to India’s chief justice. Apparently, this exercise was limited because Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan refused to answer the Right to Information query whether or not the judges had been complying with the resolution. In fact, his reply triggered a controversy.

Of course, the chief justice was right when he said that the resolution was ‘voluntary’. But a law by parliament, as suggested by him, would have placed the judges at the same level as the civil servants. A law on the subject would have been embarrassing and law minister Veerapa Moily has announced the dropping of the proposed bill. Unfortunately, new legislation is being proposed. However, the government should ensure that the dignity of the judges is not harmed.

On the other hand, the judges must realise that their credentials have already been smudged due to some serious lapses in their record. The sword of contempt of court hangs over the head of lawyers, clients, journalists and others. Otherwise, many skeletons would have tumbled out of the closet. The judiciary also has to its advantage the people’s instinctive respect for the institution. People do not want to pull down a pillar on which the democratic structure rests. The judges should consider it a plus point.

Former Chief Justice S.P. Bharucha was the first to disturb the placid judicial waters a few years ago. He said that 20 per cent of the judges were corrupt. He never explained this nor gave any concrete suggestion as to how to punish the corrupt. In fact, an advocate from Rajasthan, the state from where Bharucha had made the statement, wrote to him wanting to know the details of his charge which would have helped him to take up the matter with the state high court. Bharucha did not reply.

The thread was picked up by retired Chief Justice J.S. Verma when he wrote a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to request him to 'devise a suitable procedure with legal sanction, without any further delay, to provide for such situations.' That was in April 2005. Verma is still waiting for a reply.

For the sake of credibility, there has to be a uniform procedure to deal with the errant judges. Chief Justice Balakrishnan has applied different yardsticks to different judges. When Justice Soumitra Sen of the Calcutta High Court refused to resign despite his indictment, Justice Balakrishnan asked the government to initiate impeachment proceedings against him.

But when it came to Justice Nirmal Yadav of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in the cash-for-judge scam, the chief justice made no such recommendation against her. Instead, he allowed the Central Bureau of Investigation to drop the corruption case against Justice Yadav. This piece of inaction lent credence to Justice Yadav’s counter-allegation that other judges were involved in the scam.

More recently, when Justice R. Reghupathy of the Madras High Court alleged that a union minister had tried to influence him in a pending case through a telephone call, the chief justice’s initial reaction was to deplore the interference. Yet, the matter was laid to rest simply because it was found that a lawyer visiting Justice Reghupathy’s chamber had made the call on behalf of the minister.

The government’s wishy-washy attitude towards the complaint made against Chief Justice Y.K. Sabharwal when he was in office cannot be forgotten. He sealed certain properties in Delhi that benefited his sons. The law ministry said that the Judges (Protection) Act bars the court from entertaining any civil or criminal proceedings against a sitting judge 'for any act, thing or word committed, done or spoken by him or in the course of acting or purporting to act in the discharge of his official or judicial duty of functioning.' The act protects a judge against litigants feeling aggrieved over his verdict. It does not cover allegations made against a judge.

The bill that the law ministry introduced in the last Lok Sabha to empower a judicial forum to deal with complaints against judges lapsed after the general elections. What shape the bill would have eventually taken is difficult to say because there were serious differences over the constitution of a judicial forum.

The demand for the constitution of a judicial forum has not in any way minimised the supreme court’s resolution on the declaration of assets by the judges. Countries like Australia and New Zealand have it. Why not the Third World? This forum, as the demand goes, will have the chief justice, a supreme court judge and a third legal luminary from outside in consultation with the prime minister and the opposition leader. I wish the forum could also have an eminent person from the public who is not connected with the law.

In fact, the appointment of judges also needs to be more transparent. At present the collegium’s senior supreme court judges, presided over by India’s chief justice, make the selection. America and South Africa have the senate to endorse the appointments. India can adopt a procedure where the Rajya Sabha discusses the recommendation for the appointment of judges to the high courts and the supreme court.

The accountability of judges is something basic to the credibility of the verdict they pronounce. Their honesty and integrity has to be beyond reproach for their judgments to be respected, not only legally but also morally.

The writer is a leading journalist based in Delhi.