What should be done in future?

♤ Bringing a new Judicial standards and accountability bill along the lines of Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill 2010 (which lapsed) to establish a set of legally enforceable standards to uphold the dignity of superior judiciary and establish a new architecture to process the public complaints leveled against the judges.

o The Judges (Inquiry) Bill, 2006 also proposed establishment of a National Judicial Council (NJC) to conduct inquiries into allegations of incapacity or misbehaviour by High Court and Supreme Court judges.

♤ Appointment- the collegium should take adequate safeguards so that only judges of high caliber and impeccable integrity are appointed to the higher courts. This requires infusion of greater transparency in the selection of judges.

♤ Greater Internal regulation: There were several instances where the Judge behaved inappropriately, disciplinary actions should have been taken promptly at very first instance of such misconduct. For this, a National Judicial Oversight Committee should be created by parliament which shall develop its own procedures to scrutinizing the complaints and investigation. The composition of such committee should not affect judicial independence.