On the 7th of July, Retired Madras High Court Judge, Justice PN Prakash gave an interview to the legal news site, Bar and Bench. In the first of this two-part interview, Justice Prakash shared his insights on the bottlenecks of our Judicial system which we inherited from the British, the possible remedies for fixing the issues, and ‘politically motivated’ objections raised at the time of his judicial appointment.
Brief Introduction about Justice Prakash
In January 2023, Justice PN Prakash retired as the Madras High Court judge after serving a long stint of nearly a decade at the court. Prior to his judicial appointment, he was a practising lawyer who specialised in criminal law with more than three decades of experience. Additionally, he had prior involvement in politics and was associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at one point.
During his judicial tenure, Justice Prakash disposed of 69,190 cases and played a crucial role in introducing the Pattam Project. It was a project for the rehabilitation of first-time petty offenders. He also played a key role in enforcing the Tamil Nadu Criminal Rules of Practice, 2019. He also ended the evening courts in Tamil Nadu arguing that it was an unnecessary burden on the State’s resources.
Justice Prakash initially aspired to become a doctor, but his Class XI CBSE results were delayed by a month when Indira Gandhi called elections in 1977. After missing an opportunity to secure a medical college seat, he joined DG Vaishnav College to study economics. However, his interest in theater and acquaintance with renowned actor Radha Ravi led him to join Law College with the intention of pursuing acting opportunities.
The Journey to Judgeship and issue that his opponents rake regularly
After completing his law studies in 1984, he was inspired by figures like Justice MC Chagla and Atal Bihari Vajpayee and later he actively participated in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and engaged in public speaking as an ordinary BJP karyakarta. At that time, he was also arrested and kept in the Chennai Central Jail.
Afterward, with the help of famous Public Prosecutor, P Rajamanickam he became an Additional Public Prosecutor. Rajamanickam was the Chief Public Prosecutor in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. After Rajamanickam’s death, PN Prakash became a Public Prosecutor.
In 2004, he gave up government work to start a firm called Norton and Grant with
G Jayachandran (currently Madras High Court Judge), and Advocate S Rajendra Kumar. In 2013, the senior-most judges of the Madras High Court asked him to seek elevation to the Bench, he asserted that his name will not be cleared due to his past political leanings.
Justice Prakash stated that then he declared everything, including his political past in the form because he did not want to conceal anything. He stated that he didn’t get arrested for cheating or in a murder case, he didn’t need to hide anything as it was a political arrest.
The politically motivated outrage over his judicial appointment
Subsequently, Justice Prakash highlighted the outrage and controversies that was hurled at him at the time of his judicial appointment. He even called it a “politically motivated” one.
He said, “But after my name was proposed by the Madras High Court for elevation, there was so much agitation by the Bar. They said I was a Brahmin candidate and that I was a Malayali, therefore, not a son of the soil. Which was not even true. I was born in a government hospital in Triplicane, Chennai. But even then, I did not harbour any ill-will against anyone. I knew everyone had political motives. I understood their political compulsions.”
He added that he was surprised when the Congress government cleared his name. He further stated that the Home Ministry called for his files. The High Court and the Supreme Court Collegium cleared his name as he had not concealed anything about his political past.
Responding to his earlier criticism of the court and calling it bogus, Former Justice Prakash said, “Our judicial system did not have an organic growth with the society. It was thrust upon us by the British.”
He asserted that though calling our judicial system bogus will be harsh, one can call our judicial system a ‘farce’.
He argued that the jurisprudence of the West was shaped by the Greek belief system that this is only one life and that time is linear. However, Indians believe in several lives, and also in the theory of Karma. For us, time is cyclical and that is why we suffer injustices stoically. We accept boycotts of courts by lawyers and also long delays in the disposal of cases. We attribute all this to our Karma.
Justice Prakash further argued that our people respect the courts more out of fear than love. He asserted that there are two classes of people in India – those who cannot be persuaded to litigate and those who cannot be restrained from litigating. The former is in the majority.
Indian courts are merely passing judgments not delivering justice, asserts Justice Prakash
Former Madras HC judge Prakash claimed that since this formal justice dispensation system has not had organic growth, our people do not hesitate in speaking lies. He stated that if an in-depth study of the plaints and written statements filed in suits is conducted, one can see that both sides would have lied copiously.
He added, “Truth and justice are twin sisters. And in the absence of truth in the system, what we are delivering is not justice, but merely judgments.”
He reminded what Former President KR Narayanan said during the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the Supreme Court.
President Narayanan said that the court of law “is not a cathedral but a casino where so much depends upon the throw of the dice.”
Stating that he strongly believes in our scriptures, he narrated an episode from Bhagwath Puran, where in speaking about the Kalyug, Sukracharya tells Parikshit, “Might only will be right. There will be injustice because of the immorality of judges.”
It also says, “Justice will have every chance of being vitiated because of one’s ability to gratify those administering it, and voluble speech the (only) criterion of scholarship.”
Other issues plaguing the Courts and possible solutions
Justice Prakash stated that it is the rich who create a traffic jam on the road to justice.
He said, “Please visit the prisons. You will see the lowest strata of society suffering imprisonment either as remand prisoners or convicts. Why? Do you mean that the middle-class and upper-class people in this country are paragons of virtue? No, they are able to break laws and the system with influence and money power.”
According to Retired Justice, the Judicial Statistics Bill that Fali S Nariman had sought to introduce in 2004 was a very good idea. It would have let one know about the kind of disputes a court hears, the amount of time it spends on each case, etc.
He advised everyone to read Arun Shourie’s ‘Anita gets bail’ and Justice Mridula Bhatkar’s ‘I must say this’, as one will get tears in their eyes.
He further argued that we should have a Commission of Inquiry to study perjury and falsehood in courts. Targeting the current Judicial system, Retired Justice Prakash said, “You know why people still go to court? Because, in their collective imagination, judges occupy an exalted position. Ideally, a robust alternative dispute redressal system where disputes can be nipped in the bud by mediation and conciliation will work best. Currently, people go to mediation because the judiciary is incapable to render justice in a timely manner.”
