In a candid casual interplay with journalists at his official residence, the 52nd CJI, first Buddhist and second Dalit to helm the Indian judiciary after Okay G Balakrishnan, mentioned he was leaving the establishment “with a full sense of satisfaction and contentment” and reiterated his resolve to not settle for any post-retirement assignments.
“I made it clear once I took workplace that I'm not going to just accept any post-retirement official project. For the following 9- 10 days, it is a cooling-off interval. After that, a brand new innings,” he mentioned.
On his final day within the workplace, Justice Gavai talked about nearly all important points together with the shoe throwing incident, pendency, criticism of his verdicts on Presidential reference, his controversial views on exclusion of creamy layers amongst Scheduled Castes from quota advantages, and beneath illustration of girls in larger judiciary.
Strongly defending his views on introduction of a creamy layer idea to exclude prosperous folks amongst the SCs from quota advantages, he mentioned, “If advantages go repeatedly to the identical households, a category inside a category emerges. Reservation should attain those that actually want it.”
“If a chief secretary's son or the kid of a landless labourer working in a village… has to compete with the son of an IAS or an IPS officer… wouldn't it be on an equal platform,” he requested. He warned that with out such exclusion, reservation advantages are typically cornered by just a few households throughout generations, resulting in a “class inside a category.” He, nevertheless, clarified that the ultimate name on this difficulty “must be taken by the chief and the Parliament”.
Strongly defending the collegium system, he mentioned it helps in “sustaining independence of judiciary”.
Whereas acknowledging that no system is ideal, he said it's “higher suited to pick out” judges as legal professionals “do not come and argue earlier than the prime minister or the legislation minister”. “There's criticism that judges appoint themselves. However this ensures independence. We additionally take into account Intelligence Bureau inputs and the chief's views, however the closing say lies with the collegium.”
Responding to criticism that he diluted timelines for governors' choices on payments, Justice Gavai mentioned, “The Structure doesn't allow the court docket to learn timelines the place none exist. However now we have mentioned the governor can't sit indefinitely. Judicial assessment is obtainable in excessive delays.”
He cited the “separation of powers” and maintained that whereas a governor “can't sit over the invoice for countless time” and a restricted judicial assessment is obtainable, the judiciary can't learn one thing into the Structure that is not there”.
On taking on social work, Justice Gavai, the son of political activist Ramkrishna S Gavai, mentioned that it was “in his blood” and that he hopes to spend time working for tribal welfare in his residence district of Amravati.
Calling pendency a “large drawback”, he famous that the highest court docket beneath his management began leveraging synthetic intelligence (AI) for categorisation and classification of circumstances and tackling it should be the “utmost precedence”.
“AI will assist. However the utmost precedence should be lowering pendency and enhancing disposal throughout all ranges of the judiciary,” he mentioned.
The outgoing CJI regretted being unable to nominate a lady decide to the highest court docket throughout his tenure, however clarified it was not as a result of lack of dedication.
“The collegium choices require not less than 4 judges on board. Consensus is a should. No identify got here that the collegium might clear unanimously,” he mentioned.
Then got here a query about Justice B V Nagarathna's written dissent to collegium's advice to raise Justice Vipul Manubhai Pancholi to the apex court docket.
“It isn't occurring for the primary time. If the dissent had any benefit, 4 different judges would have agreed on it,” he mentioned.
He didn't concur with the favored view that the court docket should rule towards the governments to ascertain that they're impartial.
“You resolve on the idea of the papers earlier than you. The federal government might win or lose. Independence just isn't measured by how typically you rule towards the Centre,” he mentioned.
Justice Gavai additionally spoke concerning the unprecedented and stunning incident of an aged lawyer hurling a shoe in direction of him in his courtroom, apparently over his purported remarks on Lord Vishnu.
Requested why he selected to “forgive” the lawyer, he mentioned, “I believe that was the choice which I took instinctively, possibly due to the thought course of that has developed by means of childhood. I believed that the appropriate factor was to simply ignore.”
On the function of social media on court docket proceedings, he expressed concern over misreporting and misuse of live-streamed content material.
“What you do not say in court docket is put in your mouth… Maybe the following CJI can study this,” he mentioned and referred to AI-generated memes and movies of the shoe throwing incident.
On the abolition of dying penalty, he mentioned that it was being awarded in rarest of uncommon circumstances and furthermore, he, as a decide, by no means awarded it throughout his over two-decade profession in judiciary.
“For 20- 30 years, jurisprudence has moved towards lengthy incarcerations fairly than dying. I have never upheld a single dying penalty,” he mentioned.
He mentioned if the judges' relations are meritorious then they shouldn't be disadvantaged and talking for himself, he mentioned they're fairly put to stricter scrutiny whereas being really useful for the judgeship.
Justice Gavai, who launched quota for OBCs, SCs and STs in appointments to the highest court docket staffers, refuted the observations that there have been lesser girls employees within the apex court docket.
He additionally highlighted that the federal government cleared practically all names really useful by the collegium throughout his tenure.
“About 107 judges had been appointed throughout excessive courts. I gave 14 judges to Bombay HC and 12 to Madhya Pradesh.”
Requested whether or not the prime minister visiting a CJI's residence impacts judicial independence, he declined remark.
