Supreme Court is chief justice centric court, image must change: Justice AS Oka
New Delhi, May 23 (PTI): Justice Abhay S Oka on Friday called the Supreme Court a "chief justice centric court" while advocating for a change in light of its composition of 34 judges coming from different regions of the country.
Bidding goodbye at an event organised by the Supreme Court Bar Association, Justice Oka said the Supreme Court and the High Courts have neglected the trial and district courts which were the judiciary's backbone.
He said there was huge pendency in trial courts with some cases pending for 30 years.
"High Courts function more democratically than the Supreme Court because there is an administrative committee of first five judges in place. Major decisions are taken by the administrative committee. In the last few years, I have found that the Supreme Court is Chief Justice centric court, I think we need to change that," he said.
The judge went on, "The Supreme Court is a court of 34 judges who come from different areas of the country. Therefore the image of the Chief Justice centric court needs to be changed."
On listing of selected matters before the top court, Justice Oka said manual intervention should be reduced.
"People complain about why some cases are listed the next day and why other cases are pending after so many days. We cannot have a better listing unless we reduce manual intervention to the minimum. We have Artificial Intelligence technology and other software which can help in rational listing of cases," he said.
Justice Oka revealed in his career spanning over two decades, he never delivered a dissenting judgment.
"During my entire tenure, I never delivered dissenting judgment. Neither my colleagues dissented. Only one exception happened two days back," he said.
The judge also clarified that he would not be giving interviews immediately after the retirement and would need some time for talking to the press.
"I have taken a stand that talking to the media while I am holding office is out of the question. I would never do that . I will need a cooling period of two to three months. The reason is that If I talk to the media today, my mind is full of emotions and I may end up saying something which I should not say. So I have requested them to give me some time so that I can be in a better frame of mind," Justice Oka said.
In a message to the bar, which was read out separately, Justice Oka said the Supreme Court completed 75 years of its existence on January 28 and instead of celebrating the occasion there is a need to introspect.
"Citizens of the country had very high expectations from this court. Though no one can deny the contribution of this court, my personal view is that the Supreme Court has not fulfilled the expectations of the citizens of India."
The judge underscored the cosmic pendency of 80,000 cases in the top court and said, "We have sanctioned strength of 34 judges. Even with the sanctioned strength, we are not in a position to control the arrears. Joint efforts of the Bar and the Bench are required to reduce the arrears."
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Actress sexual assault: Court says Prosecution 'miserably' failed to prove conspiracy against Dileep
Kochi (PTI): The prosecution had "miserably" failed to prove the conspiracy charge against Dileep in the sensational 2017 actress sexual assault case, a local court has observed while citing inconsistencies and lack of sufficient evidence against the Malayalam star.
The full judgement of Ernakulam District and Principal Sessions Court Judge Honey M Varghese was released late on Friday, and has revealed the judge also pointing out at unsustainable arguments put forth by the prosecution.
"The prosecution miserably failed to prove the conspiracy between accused No.1 (Pulsar Suni) and accused No.8 (Dileep) in executing the offence against the victim," the court held.
It examined in detail, the prosecution's allegation that Dileep had hired the prime accused to sexually assault the survivor and record visuals, including close-up footage of a gold ring she was wearing, to establish her identity.
On page 1130 of the judgment, under paragraph 703, the court framed the issue as whether the prosecution's contention that NS Sunil (Pulsar Suni) recorded visuals of the gold ring worn by the victim at the time of the occurrence, so as to clearly disclose her identity, was sustainable.
The prosecution contended Dileep and Suni had planned the recording so that the actress' identity would be unmistakable, with the video of the gold ring intended to convince Dileep that the visuals were genuine.
However, the court noted that this contention was not stated in the first charge sheet and was introduced only in the second one.
As part of this claim, a gold ring was seized after the victim produced it before the police.
The court observed that multiple statements of the victim were recorded from February 18, 2017, following the incident, and that she first raised allegations against Dileep only on June 3, 2017.
Even on that day, nothing was mentioned about filming of the ring as claimed by the prosecution, the court said.
The prosecution failed to explain why the victim did not disclose this fact at the earliest available opportunities.
It further noted that although the victim had viewed the sexual assault visuals twice, she did not mention any specific recording of the gold ring on those occasions, which remained unexplained.
The court also examined the approvers' statements.
One approver told the magistrate that Dileep had instructed Pulsar Suni to record the victim's wedding ring.
The court observed that no such wedding ring was available with her at that time.
During the trial, the approver changed his version, the court said.
The Special Public Prosecutor put a leading question to the approver on whether Dileep had instructed the recording of the ring, after which he deposed that the instruction was to record it to prove the victim's identity.
The court observed that the approver changed his account to corroborate the victim's evidence.
When the same question was put to another approver, he repeated the claim during the trial but admitted he had never stated this fact before the investigating officer.
The court noted that the second approver even went to the extent of claiming Dileep had instructed the execution of the crime as the victim's engagement was over.
This showed that the evidence of the second approver regarding the shooting of the ring was untrue, as her engagement had taken place after the crime.
The court further observed that the visuals themselves clearly revealed the victim's identity and that there was no need to capture images of the ring to establish identity.
In paragraph 887, the court examined the alleged motive behind the crime and noted that in the first charge sheet, the prosecution had claimed that accused persons 1 to 6 had kidnapped the victim with the common intention of capturing nude visuals to extort money by threatening to circulate them and there was no mention about Dileep's role in it.
The court also rejected the prosecution's claim that the accused had been planning the assault on Dileep's instructions since 2013, noting that the allegation was not supported by reliable evidence.
It similarly ruled out the claim that Suni attempted to sexually assault the victim in Goa in January 2017, stating that witness statements showed no such misconduct when he served as the driver of the vehicle used by the actress there.
The court also discussed various controversies that followed Dileep's arrest and the evidence relied upon by the prosecution, ultimately finding that the case had not been proved.
Pronouning its verdict on the sensational case on December 8, the court acquitted Dileep and three others.
Later, the court sentenced six accused, including the prime accused Suni, to 20 years' rigorous imprisonment.
The assault on the multilingual actress, after the accused allegedly forced their way into her car and held it under their control for two hours on February 17, 2017, had shocked Kerala.
Pulsar Suni sexually assaulted the actress and video recorded the act with the help of the other convicted persons in the moving car.
