Justice Oka in his address called for debates on constitutional subjects, as well as constructive criticism of the judiciary.
Pertinently, he spoke of how the Supreme Court discourages Article 32 petitions, given its mounting case arrears.
“Some may argue that the Supreme Court should entertain all Article 32 pleas without sending them to the High Courts. But we are not living in an ideal world. If there was no pendency of cases, then the scene would have been different. There are 80,000 cases pending in the Supreme Court. We are not only a constitutional court but also an appellate court … when we have mounting arrears we need to fix our priorities,” he opined.
On the question of whether there should be a dedicated Bench to hear such cases, Justice Oka said that a decision on the same has to be taken by the Chief Justice of India.
“I had only one answer. This question has to be before the master of roster and no one else.”
In response to a question on whether a polyvocal Supreme Court can have a standard way of disposing of personal liberty petitions, he welcomed multiple views among the Bench.
“We need such diversity when it comes to judicial views. AK Gopalan was corrected, and ADM Jabalpur too was corrected. And today we say something and later it can be corrected. Law is not mathematics which is 2 plus 2 = 4.”
Source: Barandbench
