Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant has expressed concern that judges are increasingly subjected to adverse public remarks because of the observations they make during case hearings.CJI Kant made these comments on Thursday during the hearing of a plea filed by former Janata Dal (Secular) MP Prajwal Revanna.
Justice Kant highlighted that oral remarks made by judges often address hypothetical situations.Justice Kant, who had himself recently come under attack for his oral remarks in a case alleging disappearance of five Rohingya immigrants in India, said that he would not be intimidated by such reactions.
"There are hypothetical situations in court. We make observations. But I am not someone who will take browbeating. Not so easy with me. As soon as the judge makes an observation there are allegations made against him," CJI Kant said.A bench of CJI Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi then dismissed Revanna's plea for the transfer of two rape trials pending against him to a different judge in Bengaluru.
Notably, one of the arguments advanced by Revanna was that the trial judge hearing the matter had made adverse comments against him and his counsel. Revanna's lawyers also referred to certain critical observations made by the Karnataka High Court against him.However, CJI Kant said that judges' observations should not lead to allegations against them.
CJI Kant and Justice Bagchi also observed that judicial officers cannot be held to ransom and that top court must safeguard the morale of district judiciary. Further, CJI Kant said that judges take corrective steps when they make mistakes."Sometimes we make errors but we rectify it. I just did it. We deal with such large volume of cases and evidence," he said.
Recently, CJI Kant faced criticism for telling a litigant that they seemed to want a "red carpet" for immigrants in India, and for observing that habeas corpus petitions seeking release of detained immigrants were very fanciful.Subsequently, former judges, including Justices AP Shah, K Chandru and Anjana Om Prakash, legal commentators and activists criticized CJI Kant's views in an open letter. They said that they were deeply concerned by the "unconscionable remarks" made about Rohingya refugees during the December 2 hearing.
In particular, they flagged statements reported to have made by CJI Kant questioning the legal status of the Rohingya as refugees, "equating them with intruders illegally entering India."In the letter addressed to the CJI, they also underscored that the Chief Justice of the top court is the custodian and final arbiter of the rights of the poor and the marginalised. Subsequently, 44 retired High Court and Supreme Court judges on December 9 circulated a statement condemning what they termed a "motivated campaign" against CJI Kant. The December 5-letter was also referred to in the statement.
Follow us
