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The social composition of judiciary inevitably affects and influences its judgements. The judges are not super-human beings. Howsoever objective and fair they may try to be in their decisions or interpretation of law on any socio-economic issue, they cannot but be influenced by many considerations. Nearly a hundred years ago, the US President Roosevelt said: “The decisions of the courts on economic and social questions depend upon their economic and social philosophy.” A judge’s mind is not “a mechanical legal slot machine”. His judgement is influenced at least unconsciously by his likes and dislikes, prejudices and predilections, his entire philosophy of life in the atmosphere of the ongoing social struggles in the country, the resultant bitterness cannot leave the judges without being influenced in their judgements as to the right or wrong of the struggles. Being members of the struggling communities they are bound to be partisan, because they share the sentiments and prejudices of their communities. In the words of Justice O.Chinnappa Reddy, “The Court belongs to a class… when the class consciousness takes over”. As oberved by the former Chief Justice of India P.N. Bhagwati, since judges are drawn from the class of well-to-do lawyers, they unwittingly develop certain biases. The members of the judiciary have so far been drawn from the very section of society which is infected by ancient prejudices and is dominated by notions of gradations in life …………….
The present reservation-free judicial system has proved to be very unsatisfactory if judged by the state of affairs of the dispensation of justice …………….
Social background was never a consideration for the composition of the higher judiciary, obviously under the false view of its being communal representation …………….
The judiciary should, therefore, be so composed as to reflect the socio-economic realities of the nation’s life …………….
Source: Report of the Parliamentary Committee on the welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (1999 – 2000) – Representation of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in judiciary with special reference to the appointment in Supreme Court and High Courts.
