Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra: Easy to destroy a system, hard to make it work

NEW DELHI: On Wednesday, the CJI said that it is easy to criticise and destroy a system but very difficult to make it “perform”. This is his first reaction to the rebellion by four most Senior Supreme Court judges who accused him of breaching norms and rules by “selectively” assigning cases of far-reaching national importance to junior judges.

He said, “It is necessary to be productive in a state of counterproductive times. There may be some elements that may endeavour to weaken the institution. But we refuse, we all together to succumb to them.”

 Law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said, “The judiciary should maintain restraint in interfering in issues of policy and governance and the governance must be left to the people’s representatives. It should only intervene when the government has always respected the concept of Public interest Litigation as a tool to protect the rights of the poor and disadvantaged but the judiciary should discourage ‘fly-by-night’ PILs. We have always respected PIL and judiciary must intervene to put things right I would also say that governance must be left to those who are elected by the people to govern.”

This occasion was used to bring to the notice of overcrowding in court rooms by K K Venugopal, an attorney general.