UNDERSTANDING FEUDAL JUDICIARY

Justice DY Chandrachud's anguish about feudalism in the judiciary seeped in from princely India. Who should know this better than an additional district & sessions judge who became a district & sessions judge before being elevated to the High Court

- Justice Kamaljit Singh Garewal

DR Lokendra Malik in his recent article, “A Feudal Mindset”, gives a very detailed overview of Justice Dr DY Chandrachud's speech at a conference on Mediation and Information Technology, organised by the High Court of Gujarat. Here, Justice Chandrachud said: “We all know Indian judiciary even today is essentially feudal. These feudal practices are evident to us by the element of subordination between practice amongst judges of the district judiciary judges being made to wait when a judge of the higher court is coming to the district, at the border of it. Judges of the district judiciary are not allowed to sit when they talk to High Court judges or even higher. These are some of the symbols of the subordination of the district judiciary.” Malik also referred to the views recently expressed by Professor Upendra Baxi and Justice Sanjib Banerjee on the subject of judicial feudalism. This article may be considered an extension to what Malik has very ably written.

Calling the judicial system feudal may sound too sweeping a statement, but it shows the judge's extreme anguish at the state of affairs. Is the judiciary really feudal, across the length and breadth of India, from the metropolitan cities to the small towns, and the over six lakh villages where 840 million people live and real poverty resides? Or only a negligible number of members of the judiciary display some feudal tendencies, while most are well trained and well educated, modern in approach, rational in thinking and balanced in their views? And in those who are intrinsically feudal, is feudalism a part of their genetic make up which has robbed them of republican and secular values? Did such judges learn feudal ways while growing up, which even their training did not make them shed? How is it that a feudal mindset went undetected during the recruitment process, instead of getting identified and eliminated?