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Karan Thapar: Hello and welcome to Devil’s Advocate. How concerned are India’s senior judges about allegations of corruption in the judiciary and has the time come to change the way judges are appointed? Those are two of the key issues I shall raise today in an exclusive interview with the Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan.

Chief Justice Balakrishnan, let’s start with corruption in the judiciary. One of your predecessor Chief Justice Bharucha has gone on record to say that 20 per cent of India’s judges are corrupt and Transparency International has done a survey, which shows that 63 per cent of the Indian people perceive the judiciary as corrupt whilst 47 per cent have direct experience of bribing to judiciary. How deeply concerned are you by these facts?

K G Balakrishnan: I couldn’t say the percentage. The people perceive the judiciary as a whole system consisting of the judges, members of the subordinate staff, members of the High Court staff, members of the Supreme Court staff, the advocates, advocates’ clerks, agents - all are involved in the system. In that way, there may be some corruption. So I don’t agree that so much percentage of corruption is among the judges who are sitting.

Karan Thapar: What percentage of judges who do you think are or could be corrupt?

K G Balakrishnan: Do you mean the judges of the superior courts?

Karan Thapar: Judges of the High Courts, judges of the Supreme Court.

K G Balakrishnan: Only handful of judges against whom there are allegations.

Karan Thapar: So, is the public perception that judges are corrupt an exaggeration?

K G Balakrishnan: If they talk about the whole system, there may be some sort of corruption in the system. While filing they may give something. Therefore people say for going to court one has to pay something. But judges as such, I don’t think there is large-scale corruption among the sitting judges of the superior courts.