 I'd like to talk today about the independence of the judiciary or the lack of it. It's really high time that the judges actually, when they came out on the 18th of January, I think it's really high time that somebody came out from within the judicial fraternity and spoke up. There are a few occasions of a stray incidence of lawyers coming out, but this is the first time and yes, salutations. I'd like to start with an incident when I started my practice. When I walked into court, it was the Supreme Court of India. I saw very senior counsel, gravel and bow and scrape before judges. I saw them then walking backwards and then exit the court. I saw the judge flinging the file after that and with the utter arrogance of saying, whatever he pleased with the knowledge that there would be no consequence to that judge. It had no bearing to the case, but so what? There was no accountability, there was no answerability. So I also learned from just stray comments from people that, oh, you'll get your relief depending on who argues your case for you, which was a bit of a shocker for me because we were thoroughly prepared with our laws, with our facts and everything, but we were told it was important that you had someone who actually had the year of the judge and if they chose not to, they would simply not listen. So coming to independence, and I'll keep it short, I'll also, my friends have already spoken about many of these aspects, but as far as independence is concerned, I think the basic that we expect from the system is to uphold the law, uphold the law without extraneous considerations and simply follow the law in which itself is not done in the majority of the cases. So I would like to talk about the vast majority of cases where on a day-to-day basis, month after month and year after year, people are denied justice simply because of the lack of application of the law and yes, the lack of independence of the judiciary and the reasons are, one is the appointment system itself, the other is, and as a consequence, the outcome of the appointment system and the manner of adjudication and finally, of course, the total absence of accountability. Appointments, as far as we're concerned, we're talking about independence, yes. Independence in not only the manner that we've seen recently, where in fairly big cases there's been an attempt to fix benches and rosters, but also independence in the sense that when you have 60 to 70% of cases where the government is a party, if you have the judge adjudicating upon the case also coming from government, where is it possible to even expect a remote sense of justice? The same person has represented that body and then is sitting on that case and trying to adjudicate and or at least seemingly trying to adjudicate. It's seldom that the correct law is applied and even if they're familiar with the law, there is a position that has already been taken. As far as the outcome is concerned, it's very, very obvious, as I said, that justice is simply not done. What I would like to propose is, apart from a consequence of simply an appeal, there must be a consequence that judges face in terms of either contempt or complaints. There is a provision in the Contempt of Courts Act that if a judge is seen to obstruct the administration of justice or not act in the proper manner when they conduct cases or adjudicate upon them, there is a provision but that has been diluted by the courts. I'll give you a few examples that we've recently suffered in the Delhi High Court. There was a case where a son of a fellow judge stood up and started his arguments. So the judge bench very, you know, compassionately looked at that young boy and said, oh, but you have no case at all. So this boy said, no, but sir, it was almost like he was saying, uncle, but you know, but there's, and there was nothing at all that was said, no content. And we saw in front of us that the judges sort of facilitated the argument, helped this young boy and heard him for 20 minutes and it was an extremely impatient bench which barely gives you three minutes and finally issued notice. The very next case was us where there's been a contempt notice, contempt against 38 persons, including the police and the municipality officials for corruption. Within two minutes, this bench lost its patience and dismissed the entire case without a hearing. And then of course wrote heard, but we dismissed. There's another case and this is after the street when we represent street vendors, juggy dwellers and so we, our opponent is not only the government authorities, very often we also face the wrath and the ire of the bench that is supposed to be adjudicating the matter. Very often the judges have represented the municipality and so on and the law itself has changed its course because of the fact that the municipality has not, has not supported the rights of these marginalized groups. We've recently had a case where after 50 hearings, just simply, most of them, maybe 40 of them were adjournments, purely because the court would list the matter in the morning, keep us waiting the entire day, try to wear out the vendors so that they would lose hope and leave the court and then has passed orders against us. And what was also shocking and appalling was in the judgment, though it was the municipality that took about 10 adjournments, they say that the vendors council kept taking adjournments. So it was to make sure that the Supreme Court would look, would already have, would look at the vendors cases with some sort of a prejudice or a bias once we went up to the court. Also what was appalling was that the orders were passed against the statute. The statute categorically represents, protects vendors and mandates that no street vendor while hearing the implementation of the act will be displaced, removed and so on. But this court has just simply gone against the statute and passed orders saying we don't really abide by the law and we're willing to go against it. So we had filed a petition on judicial reform several, several years ago, but after six years of hearing, the court simply threw it out saying, we don't think we really need reform, we're perfectly all right, that was the Supreme Court. We had asked for video recording of court proceedings. We have arguments in court and there is nothing that is recorded except for what is already written. If you have arguments and discussions for three hours, all that it's reduced to is a one liner which simply says heard and yes, re-notified. The system is supposed to rely on memory or the whim of the person who's hearing the matter and then expect justice finally. Video recording of court proceedings will also expose the manner in which judgments and orders are made. So I'd just like to conclude and say that I would propose an appointment system which is not the Collegium and not the NJSE Act, but an independent body which can appoint judges, an independent complaints mechanism where you can go to the body even if, I mean, not, and you don't have to wait till there is a massive case of corruption or, you know, but in the day-to-day functioning of judges. Today we see the independence being used as a cloak for a total lack of accountability. So without accountability, it's simply impossible to have justice in the system. And so I'd like to end on the note that that I would propose an independent commission, video recording of court proceedings and also an accountable system of listing of cases. There are 80 to 60 cases listed in a day and 90% of them are adjourned. So the whole system is aimed to fail or designed to fail. Instead, we could possibly do the opposite which is plan to succeed rather than plan to fail. Thank you.