Watching TV in Judicial Proceedings - Impaired Hearing?
AN advocate told us recently that he appeared before a Commissioner (Appeals) and the learned Commissioner (Appeals) was more interested in watching cricket match in the TV installed in his room than hearing the learned counsel. (In our courts, everyone is either learned or honourable) It seems that this particular Commissioner has not limited his interest in TV to watching cricket; it is his practice to watch some programme on TV while hearing the appeals. Nothing offensive, the advocate tells us – as the TV screen is visible to the other side also, he could not get as much entertainment as the Karnataka ministers did.
What is this farce of a hearing? It is not that all appellate and adjudicating officers watch TV during the hearing – others are often busy with phone calls or calls from their bosses – they never tell the caller that they are in the midst of a very important hearing – all hearings are important only to the victim.
Tribunal and High Court judges never move out of their seats during hearing; they never answer a phone call while on the Bench, let alone watch TV - and they are certainly higher judicial officers.
There is another angle to the story. The hearing does not really matter – to the hearer – the learned Commissioner. Anyway, everybody knows that his order is most probably going to be in favour of Revenue. When the end is clearly known, why bother about niceties of the means?
More seriously, the Government should seriously consider revamping the Departmental adjudication and appellate mechanism. No institution can survive once it loses public confidence and we are almost on the verge of that as far as departmental adjudication is concerned. The Commissioner (Appeals) does only appellate work – he should sit in an open court, instead of a swanky office. And like the Tribunals and Courts, the proceedings should be open to the public. The Commissioner (Appeals) and adjudicating officers should pronounce their orders in the open court immediately after the hearing. ALL WISHFUL THINKING!
Sleeping Member: Another advocate sent us this anecdote:
It was the hearing of a Larger (Three Member) Bench of a Tribunal. All through the proceedings, while learned lawyers were emotionally explaining tricky issues of the Law, one of the Hon'ble Members of the Larger Bench was happily sleeping. Even after the arguments were over and the Court adjourned, the sleeping Member did not wake up. The other two members woke him up and took him to their chambers. These two bright judges wanted to play a trick on the Member who was sleeping through the proceedings; they asked him to write the judgement for the Bench, to which he readily agreed. When the judgement came out, it was found to be the best, correct and most balanced one. The sleeping judge could write this because he was not influenced by the long winding arguments of the learned lawyers!