In an exemplary intervention, the Supreme Court recently directed two judicial officers in Delhi to undergo a week-long training, flagging serious lapses on their part in granting bail in a fraud case. The top court found that in successive orders favouring the same accused, the concerned additional chief metropolitan magistrate and sessions judge had disregarded binding precedents and glossed over material facts. Sadly, this was not an isolated incident.
This May, the SC upbraided an additional sessions judge in Madhya Pradesh for overlooking the top court’s directions in a bail matter and suggested that the judicial officer be sent for a week’s training. In May 2023, the SC had asked the Allahabad High Court to withdraw work from a sessions judge and send him to the judicial academy to upgrade his assessment skills. These incidents underline the need for systemic intervention to stem the rot.
There are many issues afflicting the judiciary, but the competency and credibility of judges should not be among them. A judiciary that is fighting crippling backlogs, outdated laws and procedures, and a shortage of resources, and inadequate infrastructure can continue to be the cornerstone of democracy only if its judges are competent and incorruptible.
A few bad judges in a system packed with quality are enough to weaken the judiciary, erode public trust, and compromise the rule of law. A judiciary’s strength is the public’s confidence in its fairness and integrity. Bad judges who undermine the principle of equal justice through corruption, unethical behaviour, biases, and faulty rulings threaten this trust.
Besides addressing flaws in the system for judicial appointment, which can facilitate enrolling of compromised and incompetent individuals, and strengthening internal accountability mechanisms to catch the bad apples, there is need to institute a system for mandatory, periodic training of judges.
Doctors, teachers, pilots, and even lawmakers are routinely made to undergo training or refresher courses; why not judges? Instead of disciplining one officer at a time, the judiciary must institutionalise retraining at every level with classes on precedents, compliance, uniformity in sentencing, and, above all, bail jurisprudence, as part of a continuous professional update programme. The only way to ensure quality in judgements is to ensure that quality people are appointed and standards are maintained through continuous monitoring.