New CJI Ranjan Gogoi takes charge

There is a huge sense of pride in Assam and the entire Northeast with Justice Ranjan Gogoi taking oath as the 46th Chief Justice of India, the first person from this region to rise to the highest post of the country’s Judiciary. The next 13 months till November 17 next year promise to be momentous as well as challenging for the new CJI as he takes charge. The country’s apex court has appeared to be under siege over administrative issues, even as it has delivered one landmark verdict after another in recent times relating to a wide range of complicated questions of law, most notably right to privacy as a fundamental right, triple talaq as unconstitutional, legal sanction to passive euthanasia and decriminalising of same sex relationships. But the troubles within the Supreme Court have received widespread media coverage following the unprecedented press conference in January this year by four seniormost judges including Justice Gogoi, particularly over the manner of allocation of cases by the CJI to various benches. By degrees, most of these issues seem to have been sorted out, and Justice Dipak Mishra as outgoing CJI strengthened precedent and tradition by smooth passing of the baton to Justice Gogoi. With several landmark verdicts to his credit including the one in 2015 permitting use of only the photographs of the President, Prime Minister and CJI in advertisements of government schemes, and pulling up the government last year over non-appointment of Lokpals and Lokayuktas, Justice Gogoi has also been praised for firmly keeping the NRC update process in Assam on track. His ascension to the CJI’s post brightens the hopes of timely and transparent publication of a proper NRC, a citizens register not riddled with the names of aliens as our electoral rolls have been. Even before taking charge, Justice Gogoi has made it clear that PILs (public interest litigations) are only for the poor to knock at the court’s door. While his stand is being interpreted as conservative regarding judicial activism — considering that PILs have been allowed to be used as an instrument by other parties (without locus standii) to move the court over public issues — it is also a fact that vested interests have been cynically misusing PILs and taking up valuable court time and resources.

On his first day in office, the new CJI has already signalled that the practice of ‘urgent mentioning’ of cases will be dispensed with. This practice allowed litigantsto pray to the court to take up his matter before the assigned date, on the ground of some ‘urgency’ beyond the litigant’s control, with the plea that grave injustice will be caused to him if his case is not listed earlier. However, this practice ended up perpetuating the dominance of senior advocates, with their cases getting precedence over junior counterparts. The Chief Justice has now laid the rule that unless it is a truly urgent matter like a demolition or eviction or death sentence to be carried out at short notice, there will be no jumping the queue as far as hearing of cases is concerned. With the Supreme Court recently giving the go-ahead to live streaming of its proceedings, Justice Gogoi will be the first CJI to hear cases in front of camera, which could open the courts to the people over vital legal matters and promote public interest and involvement. It remains to be seen what steps the new CJI takes to address the enormous problem of pending cases. About 3.3 crore cases are stuck up in the courts, nearly 58,000 in the Supreme Court and 43 lakh combined in the High Courts. Justice Gogoi has said his priority as CJI would be to combat this backlog — it would be a truly gargantuan challenge that could define his tenure. While addressing a media group in July last, Justice Gogoi batted strongly for democracy by calling upon the Judiciary to be “on the front foot”, and for good measure adding that this could require “noisy judges” manning the first line of defence, and even a “revolution” in Supreme Court.Now that he is heading the apex court, and considering his independence and stellar record, one can only look forward to interesting times in the sedate reaches of the Judiciary.