Stalin reiterates Tamil Nadu’s demands on judiciary to PM Modi, CJI

Maintaining social diversity and social justice in judges’ appointments is one among them

Chief Minister M.K. Stalin has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Supreme Court Chief Justice N.V. Ramana to reiterate three demands “of the people of Tamil Nadu” — to maintain social diversity and social justice in the appointment of judges in the Supreme Court and the High Courts, to establish regional benches of the Supreme Court and to declare Tamil as the official language of the Madras High Court.

In his letters to the Prime Minister and the Chief Justice of India, Mr. Stalin referred to the appointment of judges to the Supreme Court and High Courts and contended that for the past few years, “we have been witnessing declining representation from all the sections of the society in the higher judiciary, leading to a ‘diversity deficit’. He underlined that “judicial diversity was fundamental to the quality of judging”.

“A broad-based, heterogeneous group of judges representing various sections of the society as a whole alone can reflect the views and values of society as a whole, particularly on issues involving historical, traditional, linguistic and cultural matters. This is because they would provide wider perspectives, since the group of Judges would naturally interpret and enforce law based on their multi various backgrounds,” Mr. Stalin contended.

The Chief Minister went on to request them to include the requirements to maintain social diversity and social justice in the appointment of High Court and Supreme Court judges in the Memorandum of Procedure to appoint judges and follow the same in true letter and spirit.

Article 32 of the Constitution was practically available only to citizens, who are geographically close to the Supreme Court and the financially privileged class to whom costs of litigation and travel does not matter, he contended and said: “Such a situation is antithetical to the constitutional mandate under Article 39.”

Fundamental right

He said the people in many States were deprived of their fundamental right to approach the Supreme Court owing to its location in Delhi. “While there are 25 High Courts across the nation, it is seen from data that the number of appeals being filed in the Supreme Court is more from States around the NCR region than States located further away from Delhi,” Mr. Stalin pointed out.