Jaipur, Mar 11 (PTI) With judicial decision on "big" issues such as electoral bonds pending since 2019, former Supreme Court judge Justice Madan B. Lokur on Friday said courts should be far more "circumspect" in the cases they take up and not get bogged down with "trivialities"..Speaking at the ongoing Jaipur Literature Festival [JLF], Justice (retired) Lokur, while referring to the recent Delhi High Court decision on feeding of stray dogs, said these things shouldn't take up so much of time of the courts as there are far more important things, including those dealing with "civil rights, human rights, and elections", that need the attention of the courts.."Judiciary has got bogged down by a lot of trivialities. For example, the Delhi HC recently decided something about feeding stray dogs, now the matter has gone up to the SC to say that the decision of Delhi HC is incorrect," Lokur said, in a session titled "The Democracy Index".."Now, these are things that should not take up so much of time of the courts… I think the SC and HCs have to be far more circumspect in the kind of cases they take up and make sure that whatever they do take up comes to an end quickly," he added..The Delhi High Court order from July last year laid down guidelines regarding feeding of stray dogs while observing that citizens have the right to feed community canines..On the long pendency of cases, the 68-year-old retired judge said he is sad that several cases challenging the election of candidates haven't got decided until their term is over and that an important issue like electoral bonds has been pending since 2019..In January 2018, the Narendra Modi-led union government launched an electoral bonds scheme for collection of funds by political parties. The scheme had been announced in the 2017 Union Budget.."If the court has decided in 2019 or early 2020 that the electoral bonds scheme is perfectly constitutional and valid then there is nothing wrong with it but if they (the court) had said 'it is not valid' things would have been different perhaps. But today we are going on the premise that it is constitutionally valid because there is no decision.So really I think the important thing is that in some of these cases the responsibility lies with the courts to see that they take decisions in time," he said..Justice Lokur, who is currently a judge of the non-resident panel of the Supreme Court of Fiji, called electoral bonds a "big problem", one that he thinks will even lead to a "complete wipe out" of smaller political parties.."One of the big problems that I foresee is electoral bonds; the money comes in and you don't know who is giving that money. Of course, it can be found out through the bank and various methods, but not for people like you and me.Some political parties have got a huge amount of money through electoral bonds and there are some political parties which are just getting a trickle. So if the electoral bonds get institutionalised in that sense some of the smaller parties will just get completely wiped out," he added..Echoing the sentiments of Lokur on how money power plays a significant role in elections, his co-panellist and former chief election commissioner Navin Chawla said that "money power in combination with muscle power" can almost seal the victory of any candidate in fray.."What disturbs me most on the democracy index is money power and muscle power; if you have money power in combination with muscle power you are almost through this game … and that is a blot on our democracy index," said Chawla..He cited the five state elections results of Thursday as a fresh example of the same, with many candidates having criminal antecedents and declared wealth running in crores of rupees..The 15th edition of the JLF, which kicked off on ground at Hotel Clarks Amer on Thursday, is being held in hybrid format for the first time since its inception in 2006. It was held virtually from March 5 to 9..Turkish bestselling novelist Elif Shafak, American writer and 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist Jonathan Franzen, South African novelist and 2021 Booker winner Damon Galgut, Australian author and 2003 Booker winner D.B.C. Pierre, English actor-writer Rupert Everett, and eminent Jamaican poet Kei Miller are among the 250 authors participating in the JLF this year.
