Nobody is perfect. But the notion of hope in the delivery of justice is what the supreme court has tried preserve with the verdict on judges appointments commission (NJAC).

The legislature is inaccessible, the executive is faceless but in India the judiciary stays both accessible and has faces. This access keeps the hopes of the millions in the system and the highest court of the land has tried to preserve it.

The executive in India is most uncooperative and non-responsive. The legislature makes noise and functions less. And the legislators hardly command any respect or earn honour. Only the judiciary, despite aberrations, still retains the position of giving remedy and justice to the voiceless. It may take decades but a verdict is guaranteed.

If the supreme court judges are guarding their turf, they are just reflecting what most of us do. We do not yield, either in thought or in action. The executive drafts a law with such glaring loopholes that people with means can slip through with ease. Their accountability to the people is less said the better.

The legislator is the most hated and untrustworthy character in the Indian democracy and still likes to extend influence in every conceivable corners of the society. A private citizen can never fight the system unless he or she has the court of law to back them.

Judiciary has become the last resort of hope for Indians hemmed in by corruption, nepotism, neglect and oppression of the system. It is justified that the supreme court has sought to preserve this notion of hope with assertion of its right.

The SC bench was headed by justice JS Khehar. He wrote in the verdict on Friday that “it would be of utmost importance therefore, to shield judicial appointments, from any political-executive interference, to preserve the ‘independence of the judiciary’, from the regime of the spoils system.”

The bench said that appointment of judges is “really the foundational part” of independence of judiciary as it rejected the Union government’s contention that it is a “small part and certainly not a predominant part” of free dispensation machinery.

During the hearing, attorney general Mukul Rohatgi tried to take out the credibility of the judiciary by making some references to past appointments to the supreme court, so as to “trumpet the accusation that the ‘collegium system’ had not functioned efficiently”.

But these kinds of examples are thousands in both the legislature and executive branch. 

It is imperative that all three arms of the democracy should act in cooperative and cohesive manner to preserve the trust of a citizen in the system. Currently, that trust rests only with the judiciary and do not take that away.

Text of the verdict: click Here