Are the judges free from caste bias?

RAM MANOHAR LOHIA speaking in a public meeting in Hyderabad on July 17, 1959, asked the audience as part of his speech, “Who are the judges and police officers, which caste do they belong to, and whom do they support?.”

He noted, “Never assume that judges and magistrates only dispense justice. This is wrong.  The one who sits on the judge’s chair is, after all, also a human being.  Some things remain stuck in his mind like ‘What is society? ‘What is justice?’, ‘What should the structure be like?’. If there is an upper caste judge then, leave one out of hundred, there will be ninety nine such people [who would say that if]...the land documents are in his name, it is therefore his property, [and] hence, it should be his.  Then he will not see anything else.  He will understand that ‘[This] is justice, give it to him’. He will not look at things like where they live, whether they have toilet facilities or not, whether they can live like humans or not, because those old things are [still] stuck in his mind.  This will continue as long as police station officers, magistrates and judges belong to upper castes only.”  

Lohia was not called up for contempt in any court for his public speech.  However, just two years before E.V.Ramasami (‘EVR’), popularly called Periyar in Tamil Nadu, known for his fight for social reforms and attack against caste system, was hauled up for contempt by the Madras High Court. In a judgement passed by the Madras HC  in a writ petition (W.P.No. 568/1955), the High Court had passed strictures against the District Collector Malaiappan.  While speaking in a public meeting, EVR noted that the critical comments made by the Judge Rajagopala Iyengar against the non-Brahmin District Collector was highly unwarranted and asked, ‘Would the judge have made similar comments if the District Collector was a Brahmin Officer?’. In April 1957, in the contempt, EVR made a detailed statement justifying his comments and also stated once again that the judges are not free from caste bias. 

In his defense statement, he even quoted a judgment of the Madras High Court in which it had criticised a sub-judge, naming his community and his utter disregard for legal consideration: -

“This is an audacious attempt by a Brahmin Judge to invent a new rule, namely that a daughter who is unchaste is under the same rule of exclusion as a widow and can’t inherit her father’s or mother’s estates…’ The reason why that learned Judge seems to have stretched the law was that while apparently he was prepared to admit that ordinary unchastity might not be fatal, cohabitation with a Mohammedan was such an aggravated form of unchastity that different considerations should apply’”. (51 MLJ 387) 

The then Government of Madras presidency was adopting an order distributing the government jobs on caste and religious basis since the 1920s. By that the roster was adopted and specific reservations were made for Brahmins, Non-Brahmins, Harijans, Indian Christians, and Muslims. After the introduction of the Constitution in 1950, the Communal Government Order (‘CGO’) was challenged and struck down by the Supreme Court in 1951.  Therefore, it was common to attribute caste motives in their decision-making on the part of persons holding high offices.  

The early 1920s: In Madras, an emerging assertion for non-Brahmin judges

The demand for appointment to the High Courts on communal lines is almost a century old.  In 1921, a full bench of the Madras High Court headed by Justice Coutts Trotter issued contempt to one Raghava Reddi who was a practicing lawyer.  Contempt proceedings were initiated because he filed an application for transfer of a case to another court.  He alleged that his suit was before a Brahmin judge and the Trust for which he was seeking the relief was also dominated by Brahmins. The local Brahmin legal practitioners were taking active interest in the suit and hence he may not get justice before a Brahmin judge.