The Supreme Court has held that the independence of district judiciary is part of the basic structure of the Constitution and judicial independence from the executive and the legislature requires the judiciary to have a say in matters of finances.
Key points
- The historic 1973 judgment in the Kesavananda Bharati case had ruled that independence of judiciary is a part of basic structure of the Constitution.
- The bench held that the district judiciary is, in most cases, also the court which is most accessible to the litigant.
- The judgment, based on a petition filed by the All India Judges Association, gave a series of directions to amend the service rules of the district judiciary and for payment of arrears of pension, additional pension, gratuity and other retiral benefits.
- The directions were based on the recommendations made in the report of the court-appointed Second National Judicial Pay Commission headed by Justice P.V. Reddi (retired) as its chairman with senior advocate R. Basant as its member.
- The judgment highlighted the doctrine that the “judiciary must possess the inherent power to compel payment of those sums of money which are reasonable and necessary to carry out its mandated responsibilities, and its powers and duties to administer justice”.
District Judiciary
- The principal Court of Civil Jurisdiction is the Court of District Judge at the District level. It has both original as well as appellate Jurisdiction.
- The District Judge has the revisional Jurisdiction. The District Judge can transfer the cases to the Additional District Judge. The District Judge can assign the administrative power among the Judicial officer.
