Judicial Iconography in India

Asian Journal of Legal Education http://ale.sagepub.com/

Judicial Iconography in India Rahela Khorakiwala Asian Journal of Legal Education 2014 1: 89 DOI: 10.1177/2322005814530338 The online version of this article can be found at: http://ale.sagepub.com/content/1/2/89

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Military-Madrasa-Mullah A Global Threat 89 Complex 89 Article

Judicial Iconography in India

Asian Journal of Legal Education 1(2) 89–101 © 2014 The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences SAGE Publications Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, Washington DC DOI: 10.1177/2322005814530338 http://ale.sagepub.com

Rahela Khorakiwala

Abstract Courts often create an ‘image of justice’ that has different meanings for different people. These images of justice are created through the architecture, ceremony, ritual, dress and language that exist within the walls of a court. Therefore, the entire structure of the court can be said to have a story that is linked to its ‘iconography’ that covers its exterior and interior façade creating a particular ‘image of justice’. There are several academic writings in the West on judicial iconography linked to court structures that influence the way justice is imaged. However, this field of academic research is relatively nascent in India. This article relates these existing concepts to judicial iconography in India. The available literature on courts in India is the evidence of the fact that courts in India also provide a particular image of justice. This is seen through examples from the Supreme Court of India, the Bombay High Court, the Rajasthan High Court, a District Court in Tamil Nadu and the High Court of Punjab and Chandigarh. This article therefore addresses how the study of iconography extends to judicial discourse. The infinite examples and instances of the different images of justice that abound the courts create a space for research on judicial iconography wherein every court in India has a story to tell and an image to create.

Introduction The image of a court has different meanings for different people and these meaning changes through the architecture, ceremony, ritual, dress and language that exist within the walls of a court. The entire structure of a court can be said to have a story linked to its ‘iconography’ that covers its exterior and interior façade that creates a particular ‘image of justice’ which is what is analyzed through the course of this article. In the case of India, most academic writing on courtroom studies focuses on the nature of the legal profession and studies on courtroom iconography are nascent. However, in the West, there have been several studies on the changing image of justice, courtroom iconographies and judicial meaning articulated through the structure of the court. While Peter Goodrich1 writes about the issues connected to courtroom speech, language, architecture and dress, Judith Resnik and Dennis Curtis2 document the Peter Goodrich, Languages of Law: From Logics of Memory to Nomadic Masks, in Modalities of Legal Annunciation: A Linguistics of Courtroom Speech 179–208 (Peter Goodrich ed., Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1990). 2 Judith Resnik & Dennis Curtis, Representing Justice: Inventing, Controversy and Rights in City States and Democratic Courtrooms (Yale University Press 2011). 1

Rahela Khorakiwala, LL.B. Government Law College, Mumbai. LL.M. degree from New York University School of Law) is currently pursuing her PhD in Law and Governance from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

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different images of justice prevalent in the twenty-first century courtrooms along with Martin Jay3 who traces the changing images of justice from the fifteenth century. The work of these different academicians assists in viewing Indian courts through a different lens. Although Indian courts have not been written about in the context of images of justice and the judicial iconography that emanates through its structures, there is available documentation about a few courts in India that is the evidence of the idea of judicial iconography that exists in the Indian legal system but has not yet been articulated on similar lines.

Images of Justice Images of justice are a part of the realm of iconography and are mapped in a variety of ways. There are several popular images of justice that are debated through social movements and other forms of expression. This article privileges the iconography of justice critically through the structure of a court and its courtrooms. In this context, the image of justice that is proffered through the figures of the statue of justice in courts is important. Jay understands judicial iconography by tracing how the image of Justitia in the West has changed from the fifteenth century onwards.4 He reads this through images of Justitia that were earlier open-eyed and are now blindfolded linking this to the changing notions of justice itself.5 Jay documents how goddess Justitia in her earliest Roman incarnations was ‘clear-sighte[d]’ and how ‘suddenly’ at the end of the fifteenth century a blindfold was placed over her eyes creating one of ‘the most enigmatic of the attributes of justice’.6 Earlier interpretations of a blindfolded justice were linked to the idea that the ‘fool’ was covering the eyes of justice as the very idea of justice had lost its meaning as in her blindfolded form, Justitia was unable to analyze things straight or look at what was to be balanced on her scales.7 This form of satirical construction of justice lost its relevance by the 1530s and the same blindfolded image was now seen as ‘…a positive emblem of impartiality and equality before the law’.8 This shift in the image of justice now meant that law and acts of justice were to exist only through language in the course of discussions and persuasions rather than through images that might overpower the minds of the people involved.9 Even today there is no unanimity on whether Justitia should be blindfolded or open-eyed. It is only a matter of interpretation, as it can be viewed as impartiality and equality or injustice and ignorance. The question remains as to how such images influence judicial discourse in the spaces where they are allegorical to images of justice. As Jay concludes, visual revelations of the truth were now less relevant to the entire decision-making process.10 However, there is one powerful justification in favour of Justitia being blindfolded. This stems from the argument that Martin Jay, Must Justice Be Blind: The Challenge of Images to the Law, in Refractions Routledge 2003). 4 Jay, supra note 3. 5 Id. 6 Id. at 87. 7 Id. 8 Id. at 88. 9 Jay, supra note 3. 10 Id. 3

of

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Violence 87–102 (Martin Jay ed.,

Judicial Iconography in India 91 with her covered eyes, Justitia is compelled to walk into the future with caution in her steps as opposed to rushing into a judgement impulsively. Justice, as it exists today, must accept that it is not necessarily complete and there are several laws that are imperfect and the judgements they deliver often fall short of what might be considered as an ‘absolute’ judgement.11 This analysis by Jay leads to the conclusion that the idea of Justitia does not necessarily need to be a debate between her being open-eyed or blindfolded. Instead, whether blindfolded or not, this particular image of justice should be seen as one that is sensitive to individual particularity. As Jay says, goddess Justitia would be best depicted with two faces—one where her eyes are wide open and the second with her eyes veiled.12 Only such an image would be able to combat the inherent conflicts emanating from the different notions of perceived justice. The debate on images of justice has not been restricted to the blindfold placed on the eyes of Justitia. Even abstract images of justice have had to pass the test of questioning judicial iconography in what Resnik and Curtis call ‘democratic courtrooms’.13 Without restricting themselves to the blindfold, the authors traced the changing image of justice through artwork commissioned by the United States government at the time of the Great Depression of the 1930s.14 During this period, government officials commissioned artwork for courthouses and post offices across the United States on the premise that such work would promote unity and a nationalist feeling amongst the people at the time of the economic downturn. Further, it was meant to generate and infuse into the economy the required revenue through the creation of employment opportunities.15 Some of the images thus created led to far-reaching consequences and debates linked to the politics of identity and rights. The controversies abounding these images brought out the different conflicts in the created images of justice where what the law perceived itself as was very different from what it was perceived as from an external viewpoint. The artwork in question was sometimes an abstract, in some instances had specific images and in all cases was understood by protesters in a completely different framework than that of the artists’. The form and kind of protests that were associated with the different artists’ work ranged from issues of race to women’s rights and slavery.16 Some controversies were so intense that they led to the created images of justice being covered and separated to be kept out of reach from the general public, a restriction that persists till date. The examples cited by Resnik and Curtis are the evidence of the importance of the images of justice in law and they raise the question as to the influence that a particular image has on the visual representation of law linked to what the judiciary believes legitimizes its actions. In most cases of protest, it was the judiciary that had a problem with particular depictions of the images of justice as created by the different artists.17 The symbolism that infuses the courtroom space thus is important as it affects how the judiciary perceives itself. A telling example of this is the statue created by the sculptor Romuald Kraus meant for the federal courthouse in Newark, New Jersey. Kraus’ depiction of justice was based on the gesture and expression of the statue which conveyed its meaning without the conventional attributes of the sword, scales and blindfolds.18 However, this model of justice was showered with a host of

Id. at 99. Jay, supra note 3. 13 Resnik, supra note 2. 14 Id. 15 Id. 16 Id. 17 Id. 18 Id. 11

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criticisms ranging from referring to the statue as a ‘woman with biceps’ or ‘a wrestler’.19 The maximum critique for this artist’s work came from a resident federal district court judge who connected this image to one that asserted ‘communism’ without any true spirit of justice.20 As the author writes and is evident on viewing the statue, there is no ‘hint of communism’ which is even reiterated by the artist upon his shock on the barrage of criticisms thrown at him.21 The end result has been that the courthouse in Newark has now got its own ‘blindfolded justice’ and the original creation by Kraus has been moved to another part inside the courthouse. This move also came late in 2008 for an image that was created in 1935. Till its change in location in 2008, the statue was ‘banished to obscurity’ much to the surprise of its creator.22 It is important to note that the vague critique linking the image to one of communism was raised by a judge. Not only does this question the perception of judicial iconography but also this indicates the low tolerance of alternate forms of expression through different political ideologies. Allegorical images of justice therefore are a form of representation through which one can attempt to understand the idea of justice from those who deliver the very promises of justice. Justice therefore appears to be something different for the judiciary and the common man, at least in terms of its visuality. These images when linked to the idea of iconography create a different view of judicial structures that one might not explore otherwise. Understanding the notion of images of justice therefore becomes imperative and opens up new avenues for academic work on courtroom ethnography. Ethnography of a court in terms of its judicial iconography has been documented for several judicial spaces in the West. One of the vastly written about courts is the Constitutional Court of South Africa. Along with this, Resnik and Curtis write about the Constitutional Court of Germany and the Palace of Justice in Bogota, Colombia.23 The Constitutional Court of South Africa was established in 1994 and completed construction in 2004.24 This court is unique, as it was the outcome of the need in South Africa to reflect principles of their newly acquired constitutional democracy. The history of apartheid that had long existed in the Republic had to be changed and one of the most dramatic methods was by creating a particular image of justice through the iconic building that was to be built. As Resnik and Curtis document, in most cases, courts are spaces where there are not many reminders of the past and present injustices that have been associated with it.25 However, the Constitutional Court of South Africa is an exception to this general rule. When an international competition was held to design a new structure for the first post-apartheid South African government building, there were several entries. The selected design, a South African entry, had an explanation for the construction of every aspect of this new court.26 The history of the court building therefore plays the role of a constant reminder that within these spaces justice will take place and it will appear to be done through the transparency of the court which is one of its most prominent features. Writers of the history of this court refer to it as ‘more welcoming’ than other courts.27 This approach is evident from its entrance where the words ‘human dignity, freedom, equality’

Id. at 109. Id. 21 Resnik, supra note 2 at 110. 22 Id. 23 Id. 24 Constitutional Court of South Africa (August 24, 2013), http://www.constitutionalcourt.org.za 25 Resnik, supra note 2. 26 Supra note 24. 27 Id. 19 20

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Judicial Iconography in India 93 are inscribed in all the 11 official languages of the Republic. As one judge understood this, it meant welcoming all persons irrespective of their race, language or location.28 The intention of the architects was clear. They wanted to create ‘…a physical representation of the constitutional values’.29 This is a manifestation of the importance of judicial iconography in the course of judicial discourse. It is even more important in the case of South Africa, as it becomes more of a symbol of the freedom from apartheid which came to the Republic as late as 1994. There are several architectural features that recurrently attempt to denote this fact—the element of glass signifying transparency, the access to the building that symbolizes a free, unencumbered passage of entry and the large airy foyer that forms an ‘easy extension of the adjacent public paths and places’.30 Similar features are found in the Supreme Court of Israel as Piyel Haldar documents.31 The Constitutional Court of South Africa takes the bold step to keep alive the memories of torture and suffering that the people of South Africa have endured in the past. The court structure, built atop the Old Fort Prison is a stark reminder of this, as it was the prison where stalwarts such as Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela were imprisoned during their days of resistance.32 In the development of this entire court structure, it is important to note that as every area of the court was developed by the architects, it was presented to the judges for their comments. This can be linked to the strong reactions from the judiciary in Resnik and Curtis’ documentation of art commissioned for courthouses in the United States. Irrespective of the reactions of the judiciary, it is pertinent to realize how significant the opinion of the judiciary is while constructing a court. The legitimacy that a court derives is not limited to the statute, but is kept alive by the judiciary and therefore in reality, the legitimacy and authority that the common man views the court with is actually a reflection of how the judiciary wills the court to be depicted. In South Africa, the judges agreed to the transparent and welcoming features that made the court space open for all, whereas in New Jersey in the United States, images of the lady of justice were linked to communism and race and therefore veiled from the public eye forever. This depiction of justice is the very basis of judicial iconography that creates a particular image of justice that a ‘legitimate authority’ has mandated. A primary example of courts as transparent structures is the Constitutional Court of Germany. Built in the 1960s, this structure was known for its glass façade which formed a very important part of its iconography. It was a conscious effort on the part of the state to create something that signified democracy and the rule of law through transparent methods.33 The correlation between glass and transparency has remained constant till the present, including in the Constitutional Court of South Africa. This transparency symbolizes a break from an authoritarian figure of law to one that is a reflection of a new socio-political movement. The use of glass can therefore be classified as one form that the court uses to legitimize its visual authority—the court propagates the images of its transparency through glass. The Palace of Justice in Bogota, Colombia has a different approach to its visual image. In 1985, the court was attacked and the chief justice, 10 of his colleagues and hundreds of other people were killed.34 The new

Resnik, supra note 2. Id. at 350. 30 Id. at 350–1. 31 Piyel Haldar, In and Out of Court: On Topographies of Law and the Architecture of Court Buildings (A Study of the Supreme Court of the State of Israel), 7(2), Int’l J. for Semiotics L. 185–200 (1994). 32 Resnik, supra note 2. 33 Id. 34 Id. 28 29

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structure, rebuilt on the same space, has the names of these judges inscribed on it. Like the Old Fort Prison, in the case of South Africa, played the role of reminder of the apartheid struggle, these inscriptions reminded the people of Bogota of the siege that had taken place. Examples of different courts across continents thus show a particular link between the image of justice and judicial iconography. The use of glass for transparency, certain symbols of remembrances of sufferings and creations of interiors of a court that are familiar to its exterior have been common for courts built from the 1960s till the late 1990s. It is interesting to see on the one hand how judges agree on certain principles such as the transparency of law and on the other hand how they disagree with certain ideas associated with issues of race, political ideology and religion.35 Reactions vary but the primary concern is always to maintain a particular ‘image’ of the court amidst the people approaching the court. This entire attempt forms part of judicial iconography and judicial discourse linked to the debate on the visualization of justice. This is further articulated in the work of Haldar when he writes about the Supreme Court of Israel. Haldar states that, ‘…within any architectural place designed to house the rituals and performance of legal trials, there is a space, a designed and enclosed area, which enables law to organize what ought to be proper to its proceedings’.36 The power of judicial iconography is therefore so strong that unknown attempts are always made in order to visualize any space available in terms of legitimate legal authority and an embodiment of justice appearing to be carried out. The unfolding of a trial in these courtroom spaces are marked by the height, length and width of a courtroom space. Haldar writes strongly about how there are several other aspects that influence a trial other than ‘law’ alone.37 He examines the relationship of the interior of a court that proposes to do justice, with the exterior of the court and the people over whom the court exercises its jurisdiction, which he attributes to particular forms of architectural construction.38 This includes the walls, windows, doors, gates and the raw material used to construct the same. Looking at Haldar’s argument specifically through the Supreme Court of Israel further defines the power of judicial iconography. The building constructed in 1993 is in accessible reach of the general public but still has its own separate, formal space that maintains the distinctness of a court building.39 According to Haldar’s observations, the entire court is a replica of the city of Jerusalem where it is situated.40 The stone used for the grand stairway, the street lamps along the corridors and the presence of an imitation of the Great Western Wall within the court building allow the people entering the court not only to forget that they have crossed the threshold into another structure, but also to believe that they have never left the ‘outside’ and are indeed just on another street within the same city space.41 The powerful gateway entrance with a series of doorways strengthens the principle of ‘interiority’ that works to regulate who enters and who does not.42 The ‘second entrance’ to the Supreme Court of Israel, according to Haldar, is reminiscent of the panoptical view suggested by Jeremy Bentham.43 He connects this idea to the presence of the books, reports and statutes that are placed beneath ‘the conically shaped For reactions to images of religion associated with courts, see, e.g., Resnik and Curtis on the statue of Muhammad on the roof of the New York state courthouse (2011). 36 Haldar, supra note 31 at 186. 37 Haldar, supra note 31. 38 Id. 39 Id. at 193. 40 Id. 41 Haldar, supra note 31. 42 Id. at 196. 43 Id. at 197. 35

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Judicial Iconography in India 95 and panoptical tower of justice’.44 The location of these books of knowledge means for Haldar that they are ‘meticulously and scrupulously arranged and guarded against the uninitiated visitor, whilst still being visibly on display’.45 The structure of every aspect of a court building is thus analyzed in terms of its meaning for everyday justice for the common people. Therefore, though the court is inviting in the sense that it assists a person entering to transit through with ease, once inside, the ideas of being accommodating and transparent somehow vanish amidst the need to be panoptical and authoritative of its legitimate power. Furniture placement within the court further reiterates this idea. The large benches and raised platform for the judge’s seat restate this authority.46 Along with this, there are several other features, such as the circularity that is present throughout the court and the dominance of natural light through every courtroom that subjects the outsider to what Haldar refers to as ‘monumental law’.47 As Haldar rightly concludes in this context, ‘Law’s authority and legitimation of jurisdiction, in the eyes of the visitor, is drawn from, and is imposed by, these architectural effects’.48 A reading of the architecture of a court within a particular framework is a reminder of the link between judicial discourse and the fact that ‘All courts exist in their architectural representations’.49

Examples from India While a similar documentation is not available in terms of a critical analysis of judicial iconography of Indian judicial spaces, from the High Courts of the 1850s to the Supreme Court of India constructed in the late 1950s, there are several available anecdotes, folklores and quotations by architects of these structures. Analyzing some of the available information, this article attempts to critically look at judicial iconography of a few courts in India. The Bombay High Court is a symbol of democratic freedom, equality and impartial justice and has been a court that has stood by its citizens by upholding their constitutional rights continuously. Not only is it a symbol but it is also a proud storyteller. Being a court that is saturated with judicial iconography, stories about specific courtrooms and more generally folklore about famous cases, it becomes a splendid building that defines the city of Bombay. On a regular walk around the court, the Bombay High Court looks like an architectural marvel. However, in light of reading work by Goodrich,50 Haldar51 and Resnik and Curtis,52 it manifests itself into a mirror that reflects the history of justice that the court has always stood for. Pride attached to acknowledged judicial errors is seen in courtroom number 46. This courtroom is the central courtroom and is famous for having heard the trial against Lokmanya Tilak on grounds of sedition in 1897 and 1908. The jury found him guilty in this case. Further, this is the only courtroom in the country where the jury box still stands and remains in use for the Parsi Family Court Id. Id. 46 Haldar, supra note 31. 47 Id. at 199. 48 Id. 49 Resnik, supra note 2 at 200. 50 Goodrich, supra note 1. 51 Haldar, supra note 31. 52 Resnik, supra note 2. 44 45

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that uses the jury system in divorce matters. History therefore abounds the interior walls of this court and like the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the Bombay High Court is a reminder for its people that it always stands up against injustices. One of the most striking features of the Bombay High Court is its immense mass and solidarity—something that architects might define as magnificent but for a legal anthropologist it is the primary symbol of control that the Bombay High Court has held over its image since time immemorial. The entire structure of the Bombay High Court is in itself a huge judicial iconography that translates into strong principles of freedom and equality through the judgements of this court. Being one of the oldest courts, built way back in the late 1870s, the Bombay High Court has had the onus of being a representation of future courts in India. However, later courts, such as the Supreme Court of India completed in 1958, have different stories to tell and are structures that are vastly different; not only in terms of the gothic architecture but also in terms of space, historical significance and links to the city. Two statues in the Bombay High Court are pertinent to this discussion. They are the statue of Mercy and the statue of Justice that are placed right at the top of the court building. For some people, their placement so high up and far away implies that the courts disconnect from actual principles of mercy and justice which have been placed at such a distance and so out of their reach.53 A parallel analysis can be drawn to Haldar’s understanding of the placement of judicial books at the base of the Supreme Court of Israel. In both instances, access to justice is seen as out of reach—in one way by placing it right at the top and in another way by placing it right at the bottom. Judicial iconography has so large an ambit that it encompasses interpretations of all kinds which make the study of the images of justice all the more interesting. Another image of justice emerges from the High Court of Punjab and Haryana situated in Chandigarh. Its architecture has been read in a form of judicial iconography by the eminent architect Correa. Correa’s comments on the structure designed by Le Corbusier, a French architect, are interesting in this context. The building completed in 1955 has a main entrance that Correa describes as ‘…one of the greatest tour deforce ever pulled off in architecture’.54 The overarching and superimposing entrance tells of ‘superhuman justice’ and ‘justice without mercy’ that are somehow above and beyond the prejudices of the individual persons involved.55 The commanding nature of this architectural structure is thus questioned on a single point by Correa. He asks, ‘…is this justice? Is this a picture of justice? Should justice be beyond the individual, superhuman, monumental, beyond mercy’?56 This is what judicial iconography is about where it creates an image of justice that is so powerful that it overtakes the individual and moves to the superhuman and all this occurs through a particular structure of a court. Not only is a building a telling of judicial iconography but, as mentioned before, even statues assert their influence on judicial discourse and images of justice. The statue of Manu, the Hindu law giver, placed in the lawns of the Rajasthan High Court has led to a several protests and strong opposition.57 This statue is controversial for two reasons. One, that there exists no visual representation of Manu anywhere and therefore the sculptor cannot attribute the characteristics of the statue to Manu in

Rahul Mehrotra ET AL., The Bombay High Court: The Story of the Building, 1878–2003, 9 (Eminence Designs 2004). Charles Correa, Architectural Expression, Seminar on Architecture 48 (1959). 55 Id. 56 Id. 57 See, K.G. Kannabiran, Manu’s Statue (August 24, 2013), www.pucl.org/reports/National/2001/manu.htm 53 54

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Judicial Iconography in India 97 particular and two, because it was Manu who authored the Hindu caste system that subjected persons to a sub-human level of treatment for centuries.58 Placing Manu in the lawns then questions the very principles of justice that are being propounded within the interior walls of the Rajasthan High Court. If caste is supported at its exterior, can any person expect justice on caste-based discrimination from inside? It is unclear whether a statue has only a decorative value and what inspired its sculpting. However, certain statues have the power to, ‘…provoke anger, protest and violent reaction leading to the uprooting of the statue itself’.59 The case of the statue of Manu is an example of this. A court that is based on the principles of the Constitution of India, with Dr. B.R. Ambedkar as its chairman, is linked to caste alleviation and abolishment of untouchability. However, if these very courts begin to sport images of ‘injustice’, then they begin to question the very principles of law on which they are based. Judicial iconography then has too many unanswered questions that it has to deflect. Interestingly enough, a statue of Ambedkar does exist—at the corner of a street, ‘…as if its been out there to conduct the traffic’.60 Another ‘Manu’, with fewer protests, has been placed in the premises of the Madras High Court. This is the statue of the Chola King Manuneedhi Cholan and is a symbol of fairness and justice in Tamil literature. Murals of a different kind are therefore seen on the compound walls of a district court in Tiruchi, Tamil Nadu. In 2012, the city corporation commissioned the painting of artwork related to court scenes from typical panchayat proceedings on the compound walls of a district court.61 One painting is of a cow seeking justice from the ruler which professes to indicate how justice is available to all in the state of Tamil Nadu, even to the cows and the birds.62 This scene directly relates to the legend of Manu, the Chola King, who killed his son under his chariot wheel in punishment to himself as a symbol of justice for the cow. The king had placed a huge bell outside his courtroom for anyone seeking justice to ring. The cow rang this bell asking for justice (the scene depicted in the painting). On finding out that the calf of this cow was killed under his own chariot wheel, the king gave himself a similar punishment. This scene therefore stands for fairness and justice in Tamil Nadu. The all-inclusive nature of the judiciary in Tamil Nadu has probably had a trickle-down effect. The statue of Manu, the Chola King, is placed in the premises of the Madras High Court. No discussion of courts in India can be complete without walking through the Supreme Court of India. Located in Lutyen’s Delhi, this is the epitome of justice and the final court of appeal. Entering its compound has an awe-inspiring effect. The Supreme Court of India was built to represent the scales of justice—the central beam being the court of the chief justice of India and the two wings symbolizing the scales of justice.63 The Supreme Court has thus at its very root the responsibility of balancing justice, ‘…without inkling either to the right or to the left’.64 Other visible iconographies of justice were present within the Supreme Court complex. The court itself sits at a high pedestal, much higher than Id. Id. 60 P.  Sainath, Dalits and Human Rights: The Battles Ahead—II (August 24, 2013), http://www.pucl.org/from-archives/Dalit-tribal/ battles2.htm 61 M. Balaganessin, Stories of legal system come alive on walls, The Hindu, April 7, 2012, (August 24, 2013), http://www.thehindu. com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/article3289485.ece 62 Id. 63 Supreme Court of India (August 24, 2013), www.supremecourtofindia.nic.in 64 Museum and History of the Supreme Court of India (August 24, 2013), www.supremecourtofindia.nic.in 58 59

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the level of the street, a feature Goodrich65 says exists for most courts and which Haldar66 documents in his academic work. This superiority through elevating positions continues in the courtrooms. The judges sit on an elevated bench and are significantly distant from the lawyers and litigants in the court. They are separated by a series of benches, bookshelves, judicial clerks and typists. Audibility is low and even with a microphone system installed, no further than the judicial clerk can hear the pronouncement of a judgement. The chief justice’s court is placed under a high ceilinged rotunda that relates to the discussion of the geometric figure of the ‘circle’ by Haldar.67 His interpretation of the circle within a court is best described in his own words, This circularity, in its figurability, marks the principle of the absolute closure, of a return to unity and ultimate oneness, of a precise and faultless denial of the other; an omniscient model of truth that circumscribes the phenomenal world. It evokes the principles of perfection and since Pythagoras it serves to fictionalise the inner harmony of all matter, reflecting the circular movements of the universe and the natural process of birth, growth, decline, death, birth. As such, the circle seems to represent a defence against formlessness and chaos.68

When you look at the Supreme Court of India, its most resembling feature is the circular dimension that is right at its centre and the first image that one sees when they walk towards the court. This circle of the Supreme Court of India has in many ways controlled the ‘formlessness and chaos’ that abounds the contrasting people that it represents through mechanisms of judicial review, judicial activism and upholding of constitutional rights that it has supported since its inception, becoming itself an icon of justice. As a comparison, this court contains no glass and does not resemble the city that it resides in. Strict security keeps numerous persons away including several lawyers. Every person needs a special pass to enter, which is administratively not a simple task. A lawyer requires a special entry card that takes over six months to obtain. It can be said that a distinction of a different kind is imbibed in this court, as it discriminates amongst its own people also. There is a separate entrance to a courtroom for visitors and for advocates. Visitors enter separately and are seated with a barricade around them that prevents them access to ‘justice’ seen here in the form of judges and lawyers. Visitors can be litigants whose cases are being decided by the judiciary that is out of their reach and even extends up to law students who have not yet advanced to becoming lawyers. The question always remains whether this is how the judiciary chooses to depict itself and therefore maintains this distinction to legitimize its authority as, ‘…justice without force is impotent’ if looked at from an extreme perspective.69 The Supreme Court of India nonetheless symbolizes justice in a manner that is iconographical and distinctive from the other courts of India. With the different ideas of judicial iconography in mind, these court spaces can then be seen in the context of their symbolic structures that control and legitimize their authority on a daily basis. The different court structures in India are different images of justice that come alive through readings on

Goodrich, supra note 1. Haldar, supra note 31. 67 Id. 68 Id. at 199. 69 Id. at 197. 65 66

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Judicial Iconography in India 99 judicial iconography. Courtroom architecture and ceremony and ritual in a courtroom are the other two methods that this article explores through the study on judicial iconography.

Judicial Iconography of Courts and Courtroom Architecture One form of judicial iconography comes alive through murals, paintings and statues. Another tool to ‘image’ justice is the architectural structure of a court itself. The court building and the interiors of a courtroom are spaces that are infused with symbolism and iconography that have often been linked to judicial discourse. The preceding discussion on the images of justice specifically connects to the architectural structure of a court building. Goodrich writes about a few characteristics that are largely regular across different courts.70 Without making any generalizations, he mentions certain exterior and interior features that play a role in the larger scheme of the deliverance of justice.71 Reading this together with Haldar’s analysis of the Supreme Court of Israel further reiterates this point and strengthens the argument that Goodrich makes. Goodrich begins with the windows of courts which he says are mostly barricaded, higher and narrower than regular windows.72 The structure of the building is blind to the outside world encapsulating a different reality within its interiors. The entrance to a court is usually imposing and out of reach of the public where judges have a separate entrance. Further, Goodrich notices how the entrance of a court is usually elevated from the street contributing to its inherent imposing nature which involves both a ‘…visual and conceptual ascension from the quotidian street to the ritualised space’.73 The Supreme Court of India is a prime example of a court significantly elevated from the street. This entire exterior graphic of a court creates a particular distance of the court from the everyday people creating for itself a space where it can legitimize its own authority. Goodrich builds upon this observation through features related to the surface of the court buildings and the material used including colours, modulations and insignia ranging from gargoyles to various heraldic crests.74 Like Haldar who mentions the specific stone of Jerusalem used in the Supreme Court of Israel, Goodrich also attributes a meaning to the material used to build a courtroom. The case of transparency through the use of a glass façade is the most telling example of texture and its link to judicial iconography. On the use of different insignia such as gargoyles and heraldic crests, the Bombay High Court has several stories to tell. Across several column-tops of the high court are carvings of what is referred to as the ‘lawyer fox’.75 Accompanying this lawyer fox is the carving of the ‘monkey judge’ who is seen ‘…peeping through his blindfold and tilting the scales of justice’.76 Reasons for these images are plenty and are often folklore. The most common of these stories is that the high court had a disgruntled contractor who was not paid his promised dues and therefore he portrayed carvings of the judiciary as he perceived them—through images of a fox and a monkey. Such depictions are clear indications of how the people who deal with law are viewed from through the eye of an outsider, in this case, the contractor. Along with these carvings, Goodrich, supra note 1. Id. 72 Id. 73 Id. at 189. 74 Goodrich, supra note 1. 75 Bombay Bar Association (August 15, 2013), http://www.bombaybar.com/bar_association/about_us.php 76 Id. 70 71

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the columns also have faces of the different communities that make up the city of Bombay. Each face is uniquely identified by its headgear. Such an image is similar to what is created by the Supreme Court of Israel where there are attempts to make the interior of the court as welcoming as possible to persons coming from outside. It can also be correlated to the Constitutional Court of South Africa where the text is written in all its 11 official languages as an indication of accepting all the people that make the Republic of South Africa. The Bombay High Court, through these faces, is also opening its doors to all the people that define the city of Bombay implying that it will provide justice for all. The court, therefore, maintains its dignity in several ways. While it might not be open from its front entrance, there are other aspects that attempt to show its inclusivity. Such actions can be read in the form of different manifestations of the power of justice to control its own image. Leaving aside the exterior façade of a court, walking into a court is often an experience of confusion and anxiety. A court is a space where routine business is ongoing but for a person entering for the first time it can be an intimidating and ambiguous incident. Within a courtroom, there are different designated areas for different persons. Therefore, the judge sits on an elevated bench away from the easy reach of the general public. The place for the petitioner or plaintiff and the respondent or defendant is marked out in advance and their viewing and listening positions vary.77 As Goodrich calls it, this entire structure of the court is a ‘didactic one’ where preference is accorded to the visibility of justice over its audibility.78 This didactic nature expresses itself in the form of judicial hierarchy. This overall style and presentation of the courtroom forms part of the judicial attempt to convey the majesty of law. It is interesting to see how the law uses different means to legitimize itself. While in most cases it is noted how the law asserts its authority through imposing itself on third persons who are subject to it, there are certain examples, such as the organization of the court, that show us how sometimes the judiciary even controls itself. The act of maintaining a particular hierarchical order in court is a symbol of a particular image of justice that the judiciary preserves within its own secretive circles. This entire powerful notion of justice and the impact of judicial iconography then leads to constituting the anxious relationship between seeing and hearing justice where justice must appear to be done.79

Conclusion This article looks at the various images of justice that have been documented largely in the Western countries and what meaning they bring to judicial discourse as it stands today. From the available information on a few courts in India, these Indian courts can be looked at through the lens of the existing writings on judicial iconography. By reading these works, it can be concluded that there are indeed several aspects of iconography that are persistent across court structures, both in the West and in India. However, local populations ract and imbibe these images of justice differently. Therefore, every court tells a story. It is for the person viewing the court to listen, visualize and create their own understanding of justice which they can then link to the existing notions of judicial iconography and their subsequent effect on everyday judicial discourse. Goodrich, supra note 1. Id. at 191. 79 See, Goodrich, supra note 1 and Haldar, supra note 31. 77 78

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Judicial Iconography in India 101 The examples mentioned of the different images of justice that abound the courts create a space for research on judicial iconography in India. With this nascent writing on this topic, this article attempts to open the path for judicial iconography to become a part of the everyday judicial discourse in India as every court in India has a story to tell and an image to create. A documentation of this history would bring to centre this area of academic research that has not yet been explored in India.

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