Devil's Advocate: K G Balakrishnan

FINAL VERDICT: CJI says he's not in the favour of judges declaring their assets.

      

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Keywords: K G Balakrishnan, Karan Thapar

Karan Thapar: But what you are saying is don’t denigrate the Office of the Chief Justice by making it subject to that council.

K G Balakrishnan: That is why the Prime Minister, Chief Justice of India - all are very skeptical.

Karan Thapar: So, in other words, although personally you have no problem with people investigating you as an individual you think that the Office of Chief Justice should be kept outside the purview of the judicial council.

K G Balakrishnan: It would improve if they keep the image of our Indian judicial system.

Karan Thapar: One third issue - the Government has set certain limitations, they are saying that the judges who have demitted office, no complaint should be entertained against them. And secondly, they say no complaint should be entertained that is more than six months old. Do you accept that limitation or do you think that it is unjustified?

K G Balakrishnan: Retired judges don’t have any immunity. Anybody could file any complaint; he is subjected to the ordinary law.

Karan Thapar: So, there is no need to bring him under the Judicial Council.

K G Balakrishnan: If the retired judges are also to be (examined) how many complaints (would be there)? These are the jobs of the sitting judges.

Karan Thapar: What about the time limit of just six months? Many people say that it often takes six months to find out that something has gone wrong, if you can’t make complaint because it is more than six months old, then many area will be excluded for technical reasons.

K G Balakrishnan: Normally the complaint is filed immediately after somebody loses the case. Then six month is fairly good period.

Karan Thapar: So, you have no problem with that.

K G Balakrishnan: Otherwise it will be all stale matters if something happened. Usually these sort of complaints, some judges (have) absolutely no complaints, then he was likely to be elevated, likely to become chief judges and all sorts of complaints come.

Karan Thapar: Two quick issues - if the National Judicial Council comes into being, you as Chief Justice will get enormous powers of investigation to probe into allegations. Will you use those powers to probe diligently into allegations against fellow judges or will you be constrained by the fact that they are brother judges and that is embarrassing?