Indian Kanoon - Search engine for Indian Law

92. We now move on to the doctrinal debate and a valid resolution of the rival views. The) spiritual value of a free judiciary for a civilised human order is symbolised in the imperative Fiat Justicia and inscribed in ancient Indian Neeti Shastras. To us of a constitutional culture rooted in the supremacy of justice-social, economic and political-and subjected to colonial injustice before we became free, independence of the judiciary is no speculative nicety nor sweet novelty but a dear creed to defend liberty. But this noble precept must be perceived as part of and not paramount to the ensemble of values which makes a people free. It is not as if judicial independence is an absolute end overriding the people's well-being. 'Nothing is more certain in a modern society', declared the U.S. Supreme Court at mid-century, 'than the principle that there are no absolutes'. The world of law, like that of physics, was perceived only as the relativity of one value compared with another." (Schwartz, p. 269-70). This relativity is inevitable in a changing society like ours. Even in America 'the old justice in the economic field (affirmed John Dewey) consisted chiefly in securing to each individual his rights of property or contracts. The new justice must consider how it can secure for each individual a standard of living and such a share in the values of civilisation as shall make possible a full moral life." (Schwartz, p. 271). The nostalgic image of celestial justices wearing 'independent' ermine, unsullied by the dusty soil 'where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the pathmaker is breaking stones' will be rebuffed by Justice, social and economic, with the reproof in the Gitanjali: 'Put off thy holy mantle . . . come out of thy meditations . . . Meet him and stand by him in toil and in sweat of thy brow'. The point is that Deliverance of the People is the basic vision; Justice fills that vision with life when, in. terms of the Institutes of Justinian, it 'is the constant and perpetual wish to render to every man his due'; and independence of the justices is a necessary means to that endless end and, contrary thereto, if Judges declare for themselves socially untenable 'independence' of the interests of 'the People of India' the picture gets distorted. This perspective illumines the nation's charter which invests judges with power. To idealise independence of the judges beyond the profile of the Constitution is to self-colonise our country's life-style. And, Bejamin Cardozo has, with beautiful bluntness, expressed how the sub-conscious forces and social philosophies of judges hold their minds captive: