India, March 31 -- Long etched in Indian political and legal history shall remain the dissenting words of justice Jasti Chelameswar in the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) case. He asked of his brother and sister judges: "We the members of the judiciary exult and frolic in our emancipation from the other two organs of the State. But have we developed an alternate constitutional morality to emancipate us from the theory of checks and balances, robust enough to keep us in control from abusing such independence? Have we acquired independence greater than our intelligence, maturity and nature could digest? Have we really outgrown the malady of dependence or merely transferred it from the political to judicial hierarchy?"

Almo...