We oppose J Balakrishnan’s appointment as NHRC Chairman "Both Advocates and Judges have an equal responsibility towards the society. So both deserve equal respect from the people."- J K G Balakrishnan, ex-Chief Justice of India and the incumbent Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission. “This stubborn attitude greatly damaged the image of judiciary in the country, and the already eroding faith and confidence of the people in the judicial system only got further reduced in the wake of such an attitude on the part of the former CJI,”-J D V Shylendra Kumar, Karnataka High Court Judge "He wants publicity and such a thing is not good for a judge. Judges should not be publicity-crazy." – J Balakrishnan "On a legal place the CJI does not have the authority to speak for all judges of the Supreme Court, or High Courts, unless any of them have either confided in the Chief Justice or have authorised him to speak on behalf of others."- J Shylendra Kumar I present these four statements before you just to show that things are not exactly rosy in the Judiciary. The murmur of "all is not well" was there for a long time but during the last few years the situation has worsened a lot. And the worst so far has been seen in the tenure of J K G Balakrishnan who has just retired as the Chief Justice of India and is now appointed as the Chairman of NHRC. As per the NHRC's own website -"The National Human Rights Commission is an expression of India's concern for the protection and promotion of human rights." We can fully understand what kind of custodian of Human Rights of the citizen of this Nation J Balakrishnan would prove to be, particularly when during his three year long tenure as the CJI all he earned is a reputation of being biased, politically motivated and anti-people. During his entire tenure, many of his judgments were being seen as being motivated to please different powerful politicians and political forum as per their rising future prospects at that time. I remember a remark made by a High Court Judge before whom I had appeared in a Writ Petition saying the party concerned in a matter of political significance that if he wanted a favourable decision he could very well go to the Supreme Court where the CJI would be more than obliged to do so. He also said this is what the CJI had being doing in all such cases. One can understand the situation when a High Court Judge can dare to say such disparaging things in the Open Court. I can never prove this statement of mine because in all certainty the concerned Judge will straight way refute this and might even call me a liar but the fact remains that J Balakrishnan had slowly started acquiring a reputation of being highly pliable and politically guided. The situation worsted in the J Dinakaran case where the controversial Chief Justice from Karnataka High Court was to be elevated to the Supreme Court despite all kinds of clear-cut allegations. The way J Balakrishnan behaved during the entire sequence of events, changing his stand every now and then, made every publicly-spirited person feel really humiliated. In one statement while defending J Dinakaran he said- "“All these allegations have been raised when his name was suggested to be elevated” The next to come was the Judges Assets episode. J Balakrishnan fought tooth and nail to keep the Judges out of the ambit of the RTI Act as regards their personal assets. As everyone can easily understand, no one in the land, including the Supreme Court and High Court judges are above law. There can be no discriminatory privilege to be enjoyed by a person just because he/she is a member of the Higher Judiciary. This single stand of J Balakrishnan generated so much hue and cry and exposed him to the general public that not only he but also the top judiciary started losing some of its shine. The Nation must be thankful to J Shylendra Kumar, the brave hero of this country, who must have had to face all kinds of humiliation, disturbances, threats and boycott from many fellow Judges as can be seen from the statement made by J Balakrishnan when he said that J Shylendra Kumar is publicity crazy. So, a person who is on a justified stand and who becomes the first Judge in the country to declare his assets publicly is "publicity crazy" and the person who goes to all possible extent and uses all his power and authority to stop this from happening is now the Chairman of India's Human Rights Commission. One can very well understand what would be there is store for the people in an important case which involves any truly powerful persons from the government. In all certainty J Balakrishnan might shy away from delivering justice just the same way he had been shying away from declaring his and his fellow Judges assets. We are never against an individual and have nothing against Sri Balakrishnan as a person but for the above explained reasons, we vehemently oppose the appointment of J Balakrishnan as the Chairman of NHRC and fully endorse the view expressed by J Shylendra Kumar that -"Balakrishnan tarnished image of judiciary’" and hence a suitable person must be chosen for this post which needs much of independent thinking. Dr Nutan Thakur, Convener, National RTI Forum, Lucknow # 94155-34525
