UP police has identified 34 sitting judges, including one in the Supreme Court, as among those allegedly involved in the embezzlement of provident funds of class IV employees of Ghaziabad court. This development, which extends the crisis of credibility facing institutions to the judiciary as well, could become the jolt for it to consider whether to persist with the immunity that judges enjoy at present.

After recommending impeachment of Calcutta high court judge Soumitra Sen, Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan dropped another bombshell on Tuesday by allowing CBI to question two judges of the Punjab and Haryana HC.

The possibility of an impeachment motion against a Calcutta high court judge, Soumitra Sen, comes close on the heels of a slew of corruption charges against the judiciary.

A Supreme Court bench on Tuesday said it was time to stem the rot that seems to have crept into the judicial system. “The time has come because people have started categorising some judges as very honest despite it being the foremost qualification of any judge. It is the system.

The much respected judiciary is caught on the backfoot. Suddenly, charges and accusations of corruption against judges, always talked in hushed tones in court corridors, are flying thick and fast — all in the open. Weighed down by the gravity and the spread — from Kolkata to Punjab — of the accusations and perturbed by the southward trend of the judicial index in public, the Supreme Court on Tuesday conceded, “The rot has set in.”

Justice Soumitra Sen of the Calcutta High Court will not resign, his lawyer Subhas Bhattacharya said here on Tuesday.

The most crucial attribute of democracy is its rule of law. An independent and impartial judiciary has the responsibility to ensure that authority governs through the rule of law.

If Calcutta High Court judge Soumitra Sen is impeached, it will be an unprecedented event as the previous impeachment of Justice V Ramaswamy in 1991 failed to pass muster in the Lok Sabha as the then Narasimha Rao government failed to take a position on the issue.

Unprecedented as it is, Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan's recommendation to the government for the removal of Calcutta High Court judge Soumitra Sen has exposed a legal lacuna. For, Judges (Inquiry) Act 1968 does not
envisage a contingency where the judiciary approaches the executive for the removal of a judge; the impeachment process provided by it is entirely in the domain of Parliament.

The Centre will move an impeachment motion against Calcutta High Court judge Soumitra Sen on a recommendation by Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan seeking his dismissal for corrupt practices which have brought disrepute to the judiciary.

For only the second time in the history of India’s higher judiciary, the Chief Justice of India has recommended that a judge be removed from “service”.

The Supreme Court on Monday posted for hearing in an open court on July 17 a petition seeking a CBI probe into what is called the “Ghaziabad judges scam”.

Open court hearing Ghaziabad PF in scam case ; Hindustan Times; July 15,2008

The supreme court on Monday reached a “unanimous” agreement that the infamous UP provident fund scam, unearthed from a Ghaziabad court recently allegedly involving several sitting and retired judges, needed to be probed thoroughly.

The Chief Justice of India should immediately order a high-level probe by a competent investigative agency to examine the truthfulness of charges against 36 judges, alleged to have financially benefited in the Ghaziabad multi-crore provident fund scam, top jurists of the country have said.

In a development unprecedented in the country’s judicial history, the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), the government’s anti-corruption watchdog, has forwarded a set of complaints with allegations of corruption and misconduct against former Chief Justice of India YK Sabharwal to the government for further action.

The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to Solicitor-General G.E. Vahanvati to render assistance in a petition seeking a CBI probe into what is called the “Ghaziabad judges’ scam” allegedly involving 26 judges (one apex court judge, seven High Court judges, six retired High Court judges, 10 serving district judges and two retired district judges).

Faced with accusations having the potential to unhinge the traditional public perception of the judiciary's clean image, the SC on Monday decided to examine the possible mode of probe into the Rs 23 crore illegal PF withdrawal scam allegedly involving 23 judges, including some from the HCs and one from the apex court.

The Supreme Court today agreed to take a call on whether to start a judicial probe against 14 current and former apex court and high court judges in a scam running into crores.

In an attempt to settle the controversy surrounding the implementation of Right to Information Act in the judiciary, the Central Information Commission (CIC) has directed Supreme Court officials and the Department of Personnel and Training to present their views on the matter.

In an unprecedented move, Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan has agreed to subject 12 judges of higher judiciary to interrogation in Rs seven crore Ghaziabad District Courts Treasury Scam.

There are several instances where the Indian judicial establishment has tried to dilute the applicability of RTI to the courts and the judicial system. No matter what the issue, the penultimate interpretation lies with the courts, and RTI is no exception.

THE FIGHT for citizens' right to know about the details of judges' wealth, appointments and complaints of misconduct against them reached the Supreme Court on Tuesday with a petition demanding implementation of the Right to Information Act in the judiciary.

I am a public servant," declared Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishanan settling the dust that had arisen over whether or not judges of the Supreme Court and high courts were public servants or not.

CORRUPTION is another challenge we face both in the government and the judiciary”: Prime Minister in his address
to Chief Ministers and Chief Justices of High Courts (April 19, 2008)

TWO RECENT judgements of the Supreme Court on judicial activism and PILs have expectedly generated a spirited controversy within the Supreme Court and outside about the scope and limits of the court's jurisdiction in PILs and about judicial activism in general.

Contrary to what the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court recently said, the Right to Information Act does cover ‘constitutional authorities.’

PEOPLE HAVE every right to seek details of a judge's wealth, allegations of misconduct against him and appointments in the judiciary, according to a parliamentary panel. "Except judicial decision-making, all other activities of administration and persons included in the judiciary are subject to the RTI Act," said the report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Law and Justice, tabled in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.

Except judicial decision making, judiciary under RTI Act New Delhi, Apr 29 (PTI) A parliamentary committee today held that judiciary comes under the purview of the Right to Information law with regard to all activities of administration except "judicial decision making".

Top jurists on Thursday slammed Chief Justice of India KG Balakrishnan for “trying to undermine the importance of transparency in the judiciary” by refusing to make public details of assets of Supreme Court and high court judges.

Amidst growing demands from various quarters of the society for declaration of assets by judges, Chief Justice of India KG Balakrishnan on Wednesday said that they have already done it. However, he refused to make the details public.

Why won’t judges of India’s Supreme Court and High Courts be willing to declare their wealth when their counterparts in other democracies such as the United States and the United Kingdom do it as a routine?

When Supreme Court judges adopted a resolution a decade ago to make a periodic declaration of their assets to the Chief Justice of India, they took care to state that the details of their holdings would not be made public.

We take the optimistic view that successive Chief Justices of India shall he nceforth act in accordance with the Second Judge's case and this opinion,' Justice S.E Bharucha said on October 28, 1998, delivering the Supreme Court's advisory opinion on the President's Reference. The Court ruled in that case (in 1993) that the CJI must consult two other judges before recommending judges for appointment to the Supreme Court and the High Courts. Justice Bharucha himself ignored the court's rulings after he became CJI on November 1, 2001.

A day after the Supreme Court refused to order a judicial inquiry into the allegations of misconduct against former Chief Justice of India YK Sabharwal, top jurists said on Tuesday, that many legal options were available to initiate a probe into the matter.

In 1993, a nine -judge bench of the Supreme Court laid down a new system for making appointments of judges to the high courts and Supreme Court. This system gave enormous powers to a collegium of senior judges of the Supreme Court to select and make recommendations to the government for these appointments.

The stature of the judicature is so high and its powers so wide that any action designed to debunk, defile or denigrate the great dignity and impartial integrity of the institution is regarded as an invasion on the people’s faith in the court’s fearless, biasfree, favour-free functionalism and its solemn credibility as a constitutional
instrumentality of justice.

Scandals can be fun. Especially those that knock preachers from their pulpits and flick halos off saintly heads. But some scandals can be corrosive and more damaging for the scandalised than the scandalee. Right now we're in the midst of one such.

Are judges special or is justice special? To put it differently, can you criticise a judge without imperiling the sanctity of justice? This is the core concern at the heart of the debate whether freedom of speech should have primacy over the law on contempt.

In a dramatic throwback to civil disobedience, over 30 prominent persons have decided to “court contempt” daring the judiciary to punish them along with Mid Day journalists for making allegations against former Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal.