Published: Monday, Jul 5, 2010, 1:39 IST
By Harish Gupta | Place: New Delhi | Agency: DNA
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_sh-kapadia-is-yet-to-take-over-but-change-is-here_1405355
When the Supreme Court (SC) reopens on Tuesday, the stamp of new chief justice of India (CJI) Sarosh Homi Kapadia will be there for all to see. Not only the SC premises has been revamped, but the functioning of the top court is also set to undergo a major change.
Kapadia is perhaps the first CJI in recent history who refused to travel abroad during SC’s May-June vacation and worked in 46 degrees Celsius. Of course, he visited his native Mumbai for a couple of days.
Sources in the top echelon of judiciary said Kapadia hardly met anybody at home in the two months. He would be in office early and the last one to leave. Except for SC registrars and fellow judges, he did not encourage personal meetings. He was formulating a workable strategy to significantly bring down the number of pending cases which is a staggering 55,797 in SC alone.
Kapadia wants to bring judicial reform through action rather than legislation and that too within the next 28 months when he will be CJI.
Law minister Veerappa Moily told him that the group of ministers had cleared the judicial accountability bill and it would now go to the Union cabinet for clearance. However, Kapadia held the view that no amount of legislations would deliver justice if there is no strong will in the system.
CJI is learnt to have taken drastic steps in amending certain rules and regulations at the registry so that case filing becomes easy. He has formed a high-powered committee to scrutinise PILs.
“We have been directed to scrutinise every new case and make it error-free. Objections, if any, in petitions will be rectified at this level itself,” a registry source said.
Kapadia spent a lot of time with registrars to improve systems and procedures. During the two-month SC vacation, he constituted more than a dozen committees for smooth functioning of the court.
“CJI has really worked hard to revamp the SC premises. His style of functioning is different,” a lawyer said.
Kapadia, who joined the Bombay bar at the age of 27 in 1974, is known as a workaholic, tough and a no-nonsense man. His first big challenge will be hearing the Centre’s curative petition on the Bhopal gas tragedy where he will have to review the judgments of predecessors RS Pathak in 1989 and AH Ahmadi, who watered down the charges against Union Carbide Corporation in 1996.
