Public Respect for Bar & Bench: Myth or Truth?

By B.L. Pavecha, Senior Advocate, Indore

Right since 1962 when I joined the Bar, I am hearing that lawyer’s profession is a noble profession and that judiciary in India enjoys highest public respect as an institution. It is another thing that these phrases of adoration are repeatedly uttered mostly by the lawyers and judges only and are rarely, if at all, heard from a commoner who had any occasion to engage a lawyer or to appear in court whether as a party or as a witness.I am yet to come across a litigant who has narrated the experiences of his visit to court with a sense of pride and achievement to his children as he does after returning from a place of pilgrimage.On the contrary most of the people take pride in proclaiming that as a matter of great luck and grace of God that they never in their lifetime had any occasion to enter the premises of any court. A commoner terribly fears his entry in the temple of justice.It is a dreaded territory. This is a hard ground reality which calls for serious introspection and deep heart searching.  

Respect cannot be expected unilaterally. It has to be reciprocal. It has to be commanded and cannot be demanded. Look at the way our courts treat a citizen appearing before it. The format of the summons in vogue for more than a century is a colonial legacy. It is couched in a very rude and discourteous language calling upon the noticee to attend at 11:00 AM sharp regardless of the time at which his work would be taken up. He is required to wait till the end of the court hours in premises altogether short of basic amenities and infrastructure. The situation has been very aptly described by Dharmveer Commission (Police Commission) in its report of 1980 volume iv chapter 17 para 28.14, thus :-    

Facilities for witnesses in courts

28.14 An important reason for the reluctance of the public to co-operate with the law enforcement agencies and actively associate themselves with proceedings in court is the fact that their attendance in court entails a lot of inconvenience and harassment. To describe the existing situation we can do no better than quotethe following extract from a letter received from a senior District and Sessions Judge in one State.

"The biggest single hurdle which inhibits the citizen from coming forward to help the police is the deplorable conditions prevailing in courts of law.The lot of witnesses appearing on behalf of State against a criminal is certainly pitiable. More often than not the case in which he is to appear is adjourned on one pretext or the other.This is invariably done at the fag end of the day after keeping the witnesses waiting for the whole day. While fixing the next date the convenience of all concerned, except the witness, is kept in view. If the witness fails to turn up on the next date coercive steps are taken against him. If he appears on the adjourned date, the chances are that the case will be adjourned again.When ultimately the evidence is recorded, the witness is browbeaten by an overzealous defence counsel or declared hostile or unreliable by the prosecutor. After undergoing this agonising experience the witness is not compensated for the loss of earning of the day. Even the out of pocket expenses incurred by him are seldom reimbursed.The most difficult problem faced by a witness in our Courts is a complete lack of any amenity or facility to make the long wait bearable.What to talk of drinking water and urinals etc., in most of the courts there is no place where a man can sit unless he forgets all about his dignity and squats on the floor of the verandah or under a tree.The sight of people sitting under the blazing sun or in torrential rains is also not so uncommon as it may seem to be.Chairs or benches for the convenience of the witnesses' are no where available. It is small wonder then that disinterested persons fight shy of extending a helping hand to Police and only those persons agree to come to its aid who have an axe to grind. A man going to the railway station or a bus stand to catch a train or to board a bus has to spend an hour or so there.Yet he demands and gets the basic amenities like drinking water and a shady place to sit under but a man who has to wait for 5 or 6 hours in a court of law is not provided with any of these facilities. The plight of the witness is further aggravated by the fact that he is required to prick up his ears so as not to miss his name being called in a most unceremonious manner by the Court usher. With the experience of jails fresh in memory, our leaders are taking steps to ameliorate the conditions of prisoners in jails but nobody bothers about the unfortunate people who come forward to help the prosecution by giving evidence. A prisoner suffers for some act or omission but a witness suffers for no fault of his own. All his troubles arise because he is unfortunate enough to be on the spot when the crime is being committed and at the same time "foolish" enough to remain there till the arrival of the police.It is for these reasons that people do not take the victim of a road accident to hospital or come to the help of a lady whose purse or gold chain is being snatched in front of their eyes.If some person offers help in such cases he is to appear as a witness in a court and has to suffer not only indignities and inconveniences but also has to spend time and money for doing so.Some time the witnesses incur the wrath   of hardened criminals and are deprived of their lives or limbs.”

The conditions are the same even today in subordinate courts or have even deteriorated due to tremendous increase in work load and no adequate fund allocation for improvement of infrastructure.   

The way in which ordinary litigants coming to court or to lawyer’s office are treated is not uniformly courteous and leaves much to be desired.How many elite members of our legal fraternity treat a poor litigant with compassion, sympathy, dignity and a helping attitude? High Court and Supreme Court are practically inaccessible for them. The long and indefinite waiting period, unaffordable costs and total uncertainty of outcome are the constraints which keep them away from higher judiciary.The entire atmosphere in courts for a commoner is unfriendly and prohibitive. Even in High Courts the public servants and other citizens required to appear in person are treated in a manner less than dignified and are often subjected to avoidable and unjustified rebukes and reprimands.  

In sixties once a villager by mistake entered in a section of bar room where members of bar tea club were sitting together during tea break. That villager entered that section in search of a lawyer engaged by him and made an enquiry as to where he can be found. He was thoroughly rebuked for his entry up to that point and was forcibly pushed out in a disgraceful manner. He murmured in his colloquial language “tam log peli peshi pe to wala wala bolo ane bad me awa to batka bharo” (you people speak with a tongue of honey on our first visit and start biting on subsequent dates) within the hearing of everyone in the bar room.  His reaction had a ring of truth.

Once in nineties, a matrimonial case was fixed for final hearing in the High Court. An unfortunate retired professor was before the court with a prayer for dissolution of marriage. He just quietly entered the court room only to deliver a part of his case file to his lawyer and quickly returned back.The learned Judge was at that time in the midst of dictation of order in another case heard by him just then. This entry and exit by the professor was treated to be disruption of judicial thought process.The professor was called back, rebuked profusely in open court and was asked to stand in the middle of the last row of chairs provided for the audience in the court room and just below the clock and was kept standing there till tea break.Unfortunately no member of the bar could gather courage to get up and protest against this indignity for the fear of suffering adversity in his own cases to be heard. It can be imagined what abusive words he must have used about bar and bench before his professor colleagues after this incident.
Instances of judicial discourtesy and misbehaviour with litigants are countless and are everyday occurrence. How discourtesy and misbehaviour can generate respect? It may generate awe and fear only. It is courtesy which begets courtesy.

It cannot be denied that the glory and public faith which judiciary in our country enjoyed in the first 25 years after commencement of constitution has suffered substantial erosion in subsequent years.The extent and degree of such erosion may be debatable but the fact is incontrovertible.In recent years the erosion is fast. Many books are available with background stories of the instances leading to it. Several factors have contributed to this predicament.
ADM, Jabalpur v/s Shivkant Shukla (AIR 1976 SC 1207) when the Apex Court failed to protect citizen during difficult times of emergency under fear of an overbearing executive can be taken to be the starting point.Corruption in various shades in higher judiciary is a growing malaise. It was clearly expressed in a press interview by Chief Justice E.S. Venkataramiah way back in the year 1989 on his retirement. Several other stories of judicial misconduct have appeared thereafter in published books in press and in sworn affidavits which are on the record of the Apex Court and which were guarded secrets behind the iron curtain of contempt so far.The opaque and non-transparent system of elevations before as also after the collegium era does not inspire public confidence in the merit of the candidates elevated to Bench.Then total absence of any work evaluation mechanism and no accountability at all has worsened the state of affairs irretrievably. It is a herculean task to restore the previous glory and image of this institution or even to stall its further decay.

The prestige and public respect for the members of legal profession has also suffered a similar and slightly faster set back. The bar as an institution cannot command respect merely on the basis of its past glory and its major contribution in freedom struggle. In present days contribution and involvement of lawyers as a class in affairs and problems of general public or society is at the lowest point.Their representation in parliament, legislative assemblies, and even in municipal bodies has reduced to just marginal.The lawyers (barring a few) are not in live touch with social or charitable organisations.As a groom in marriage market a lawyer stands very poorly as compared to a government officer, doctor, chartered accountant, army officer or a bank employee.The individual advocates may be respected highly by individual clients but that is a different thing. Lawyers as a class or a section of society do not enjoy much social respect and are often condemned as a group of exploiters.There is no statutory or self imposed regulation governing the fees chargeable by an advocate which may vary from hundreds to millions for the same case or a similar case.Frequent strikes which are repeatedly held to be illegal in several judgments of the Apex Court and which cause dislocation of work with grave inconvenience, financial and other losses to litigants and at times also take a violent turn creating law and order problems have played a major role in the present predicament of lawyers.As the remedy available to a litigant against professional misconduct of lawyers is practically ineffective, they also virtually enjoy unaccountability.The level of professional competence has also gone down terribly.There are no facilities for practical training and financial security during period of struggle for the new entrants in the profession and they are left to choose and carve out their own path and to set their own standard of rectitude.   
Any improvement in the present scenario does not seem possible in foreseeable future. It requires a thorough introspection and a tough collective self discipline which is not in sight. Repetitive self adoration of the judiciary as a highly respected institution and law as a noble profession would not help.They are myths and the ground realities are to the contrary.