S. Muralidhar, Former Chief Justice of Orissa High Court.
| Photo Credit: R V Moorthy
As the coinage ‘dimagi Naxal’ continues to trigger political debate, former Chief Justice of Orissa High Court Justice S. Muralidhar has said it was reassuring to find that an irreverent young generation is neither swayed by rhetoric nor deterred by the “demonising” of the ‘dimagi Naxal’.
He said the very lack of deference among the Gen Z was a “sure sign of democratic progress”.
“The recent protests by our Gen Z assure us that democracy in India will not be allowed to die and that people will turn to the Constitution and safeguard it in order to preserve this country’s future,” Justice Muralidhar said in his address at the 28th D.S. Borker Memorial Lecture on ‘My Vision of India 2047’ on August 24.
“The India of 2047 would be better served if the law of today does not permit criminalising of honest criticism of a government or those running it, of their being lampooned in cartoons or joked about by stand-up comedians. The India of 2047 would be better served if the government of the day stops weaponising law to punish those who peacefully protest about the denial of basic rights and if it stops labelling them as sinister acts of conspiracy to destabilise the government,” Justice Muralidhar, currently practising as a senior advocate in the Supreme Court, said.
He said the judiciary of 2047 would be better served if “today’s judges act swiftly on complaints of grave State excesses”.
“The Supreme Court of 2047 will hopefully not wait for over four years to decide whether reducing a State to a Union Territory is constitutionally valid; over six years to decide whether an overnight decision to demonetise currency was legally permissible; over six years to decide whether anonymous contributions to political parties through the device of electoral bonds was valid,” Justice Muralidhar said.
Collegium system inefficient
The former High Court Chief Justice further said that switching over in 1993 to a Collegium system of judicial appointments to the Supreme Court and the High Courts did not serve the objective of getting the best possible candidates for the Bench.
“The appointment process has in the past 12 years witnessed unexplained interference by the executive. Compounding this is the vagueness as to the criteria, a lack of transparency and an overall inefficiency,” Justice Muralidhar said.
The former judge called for a reformed Bar Council of India (BCI), which is democratic in its functioning, insulated from interference by the executive and the judiciary, responsive to the needs of the litigant public, prompt in dealing with complaints of professional misconduct by lawyers and being an upholder of constitutional values and human rights.
He said many of the crores of pending cases clogging the judicial administrative system were actually “dead”. These included cases in which the parties were not alive, the subject matter did not exist, the law had changed or the government’s position on the issue had changed irreversibly. Then there were the “absolutely petty and pointless cases” involving people, including the members of tribal communities, booked for carrying five litres of illegally brewed alcohol or found with five kg of illegally felled firewood.
Published – August 29, 2026 09:51 pm IST
