V.R. Krishna Iyer, former judge of the Supreme Court of India, writes:
Chief Justice of India P. Sathasivam stepped down after a distinguished career on the Bench, and Chief Justice R.M. Lodha took his place last month. Arghya Sengupta’s article in The Hindu>(“Choosing the Chief Justice,” May 5, 2014) raised certain issues in this context. What the Constitution expects from a Chief Justice is to interpret from the high office the objectives of the Constitution. His social philosophy, antecedents and other relevant circumstances which may have a bearing on his possible behaviour, must form part of the criteria for his choice. The Chief Justice of India must make the Constitution a real instrument of justice and stay true to the values India has treasured. He should wish for a future that would advance the wonder of Indian culture; he should not be one who echoes the voice of London or Washington. Not like the Thames or the Potomac, but like the Ganga, the Yamuna and the Krishna, should flow the judicial performance of the highest court. The question then is: what are the valid and valuable traditions and heritage we as a nation would like to preserve and strengthen? We cannot go into the composition of the Vedas or the ipse dixit and family circumstances of a particular judge. The history of Supreme Court judgments tells us that the basic structure of the Constitution is beyond mutation. Paramount values govern our nation. No one has as yet told us that the Constitution deserves any major change. The Constitution stands for a socialist-secular society, for a democracy where every little person counts. No amount of rhetoric can justify any radical mutation from its provisions and values. Therefore, we need to choose as Chief Justice a judge who in his family life, in his past, conforms to the preambular pledges of the Constitution. That is the way the highest office which controls the Constitution, the Executive and the Legislature can become a reality. Else the Chief Justice becomes a private asset, not a representative of the paramount values of India’s destiny. If you accept this logic, the collegium system for the selection of judges must go. The Judicial Appointments Commission should be attuned to India’s reality. Poverty, illiteracy and other disablements need to be corrected. So my answer to the question how the Chief Justice should be selected is to see seniority as one part, and take into account the opinion of the Executive and the Legislature. This has logic behind it. We want neither a Lord Denning nor an Earl Warren but an Indian justice who will be the dream of our Founding Fathers. The Chief Justice of India must be given to Indian swaraj, and should not be one who will be approved by a process of begging and borrowing. The last Indian with a little pencil must feel that she or he has had a voice in the choice of the highest authority whose passion it is to make the Indian justice system a meaningful reality so that the proletariat may go to sleep in his own home. My final salutation is to the Indian humanity, their future, their transformation into a world free from tears and sorrows, and who has in his blood the culture of the country which was presented by Jawaharlal Nehru in his speech on August 15, 1947 thus: “The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye.”
