In A Blistering Blogpost, Katju Bares It All

Former Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju has launched a blistering attack on the abysmal intellectual quality of judges in the Supreme Court.

In a no holds barred blogpost, Justice Katju said that: "While some of them have high intellectual level and character, like Justice Chalameshwar and Justice Nariman, the vast majority of the present Supreme Court judges are people of very low intellectual level."

He also went on to add that: "To be a good judge one of course must know the law and important precedents. But that is not enough. One must also have some knowledge of history, philosophy, economics, political science, literature, etc. I doubt that the Supreme Court judges, (except the two I have mentioned) have this. In fact I doubt they have even good knowledge of law."

Not even sparing the current Chief Justice T S Thakur, he claimed that the latter chose to ignore well established binding precedents in his relentless interference in the functioning of Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

On an earlier occasion, Katju had minced no words in rapping the Supreme Court ’s continued interference in how the BCCI should be run: "What the Supreme Court has done is unconstitutional and illegal. There has been violation of principles of the Constitution. Under our Constitution, we have legislature, executive and judiciary. There is a broad separation of functions. It’s the legislature’s prerogative to make laws. If judiciary starts making laws, one is setting a dangerous precedent. Many legal commentators have been perplexed at what they perceive as Supreme Court's unhealthy obsession with the affairs of a sporting body.

Justice Katju also alleged nepotism in judicial appointments: "Justice Deepak Mishra, in line to become the chief justice of India (CJI), was appointed a judge in Orissa High Court at a very young age because of the influence of his relative Justice Ranganath Mishra, former CJI, who was one of the most corrupt judges in India. Justice Ramanna, who is also in line to become CJI, was appointed as a High Court judge in Andhra Pradesh at a very young age due to his political connections, and later became Supreme Court judge not because of merit, but purely due to seniority.”

When the NDA government, with near unanimity in parliament, tried to enact the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act 2014 and usher in the much needed transparency and accountability in higher judicial appointments, the Supreme Court shot it down. It killed a law where it was itself an interested party, when it could have read down the provisions which could have dented its independence.

It would be interesting to see if Justice Katju will be hauled up for contempt.