New Delhi: It is but natural for a Court like the Supreme Court, which has built a strong body of authoritative judgements over the past 75 years, to press for ‘Swadeshi Jurisprudence’, Chief Justice of India (CJI)-designate Justice Surya Kant said on Saturday.
According to him, the path forward would be for the Supreme Court to deepen its own judicial philosophy.
“After 75 years of the Supreme Court delivering thousands of historical judgments, when our judgments are being cited by various other jurisdictions and when we have acquired wealth of judicial knowledge of our own right, why should we, while forming an opinion on any issue pertaining to our nation, look to the judgments of other countries where the geographical conditions, local conditions, social conditions, political scenario, everything might be different? So that’s why the necessity of having your own philosophy, your own jurisprudence is always there,” Justice Kant said.
The office of the CJI requires one to be detached from social media commentary, he said and highlighted his immediate priority as being to move ahead with long-pending Constitution Bench matters. He sounded optimistic about tackling pendency.
“I am very optimistic. Even if there are 90,000 pending cases, it may be there, I am working on it. With one judgment recently, with Justice Dipankar Dutta, we gave a direction which will eventually dispose of 1,000 matters. If such directions are given, then the pendency can be tackled,” Bar and Bench has quoted Justice Kant as saying.
“My priority is also to set up the Constitution benches, especially the 7 and 9 judges’ benches, for expeditious disposal. Filing of cases is a continuous process. I cannot bring down the pendency to zero. That cannot happen and should not happen. But however, the situation should be made manageable, so that I should not think that ‘oh my God, how there are so many thousands of cases pending,” he added.
On the issue of PILs, the CJI-designate said that it depends on the matter and not the lawyer.
“If there is a plea which has all-India impact, it will be heard….whether small or big lawyer. The case is taken up. We read the brief and make up tentative mind. But sometimes the lawyer’s argument saves a dismissal,” he said.
When asked what kind of representation of women the SC will see in the years to come, he said all vacancies will be filled up.
He spoke about the media in the country and the kind of pressure from social media.
“We have two types of media in the country. One is very responsible; [they] see what the Court has held and critical reasoning is based on sound legal principles .. but there are some on social or unsocial media who make comments…. Judge or CJI cannot come and should not come under pressure. I have never been under pressure…. the only way is to ignore them,” Justice Kant said.
On tax matters, he said that the Government of India has a pragmatic approach and there is a Board circular.
“Let us have an optimistic approach. Government realised that for Rs 5 crores tax litigation we should not fight. It is also about the revenue of the country. Some mechanism has to be developed to take a final view so that time is not wasted in a specific matter. There is an element of objectivity and subjectivity,” the CJI-designate said.
