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MR Justice S. N. Phukan is hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons. He certainly comes down a notch or two in public esteem going by the statement made in the Rajya Sabha by the Defence Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee.

Most surprisingly, it did not strike Mr Phukan that, presiding over a politically sensitive Commission of Inquiry into allegations of corruption in Defence deals, he should himself take care not to slip from the strictest canons of rectitude and not to accept any facilities from one of the parties to the case.

His visits to Ajanta and Ellora, along with his wife, in an IAF aircraft could in no sense be construed part of his official duty as Chairman.

By adducing his ignorance of procedures as an excuse, he has only provided grist to snide and unsavoury interpretation of his conduct.

This is not the first instance of a lapse from discretion on the part of judges who are expected to be role models. Mr Phukan's predecessor, Mr K. Venkataswami, got into a similar problem when he accepted, while still heading the Commission, a lucrative appointment in the Government and had to resign from both posts in the wake of the firestorm this provoked in Parliament and the media.

Of course, the memory of the mass strike by the judges of the Punjab and Haryana High Courts in protest against the attempt of the Chief Justice to read them the rule book, and the controversies surrounding the conduct of some judges of the same High Court as also of Delhi, Karnataka Maharashtra and West Bengal, is still fresh in the public mind.

Clearly, something is rotten in the state of Denmark, and public opinion may not stand any more dithering in correcting it.

The onus of ensuring that only persons of high enough moral, intellectual and professional calibre enter the lofty portals of the judiciary falls on the Supreme Court, since its Chief Justice and the companion Justices have assumed for themselves a decisive role in making selections for appointment.

It is also time the Supreme Court publicly proclaimed a Code of Judicial Conduct with modalities for assured enforcement.

The question of raising the proportion of High Court judges drawn from State judicial cadres to at least half the total strength also needs urgent consideration.

B. S. RAGHAVAN

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