Post-retirement govt posts fine for judges: Balakrishnan

NEW DELHI: ON the eve of demitting office, Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan defended Supreme Court judges taking up government posts after retirement. He refuted the charge that getting such a job would reflect on a judge’s equations with the ruling regime.

“You see, many tribunals are all manned by retired judges of the Supreme Court. So, how will we carry on this work of regulatory authorities? Now we are in a regulatory regime — people think that Supreme Court judges may favour the government to get these posts. But it is the other way: There are sufficient number of judges to man these tribunals,” Mr Balakrishnan said in an interview to a television channel on Monday.

To a question if a judge would try to have a “comfortable equation” with the government of the day to get hold of a job after retirement, he said: “Not at all. Recently, I got letters from the government to suggest two names for two tribunals. We don’t have judges because after Justice Tarun Chaterjee there has been no retirement.”

The outgoing CJI was evasive on whether he would take up a government assignment after retiring saying he has not taken a decision on it. Asked about speculation of him being appointed chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), he said: “I have not made up my mind.” Mr Balakrishnan said he was not sure of what he would like to do after retirement.

On corruption in the judiciary, Mr Balakrishnan, who held the office of CJI for three years said “corruption in any instance will bother any Chief Justice but considering the number of cases, the number of judges in this country, it (corruption) is only minuscule.”

Dodging a question on whether the tainted Justice P D Dinakaran was appointed chief justice of Sikkim high court, he said “normally we don’t disclose all these things (but) some motives were attributed to me also. I felt sorry for that. We worked systematically, following all norms and so I felt sad when somebody attributed motives on something. Then you feel bad about it”.