The Bar Council of India on May 30, issued a Press Release expressing its concern over “sustained and synchronized attack” on the Supreme Court by former judges and senior advocates of the court, terming it as a conspiracy to weaken and browbeat the institution. The BCI has called the criticisms from the legal fraternity as a “virtual competition” in hurling derogatory indecent words to denigrate the apex court.
The BCI has expressed its disappointment at the many criticisms by calling it a concerted attack by some disgruntled members of the bar and some unhappy and disappointed former judges.
The Bar Council of India is a statutory body constituted under the Advocates Act, 1961 and considers it to be its duty to protect the institution from unscrupulous attacks. The BCI has said that the criticisms are flowing in mainly because the court cannot defend itself and has to remain behind a “Lakshman Rekha”. The BCI has called out former Supreme Court Judge, Justice Madan Lokur for joining the bandwagon of passing unfair and unhealthy remarks against the apex court, thus undermining the authority of the court.
Justice Madan Lokur noted how repeated attempts by several Public Interest Litigations (PIL) failed to get the Supreme Court to intervene and alleviate the sufferings of the lakhs of migrants who were still walking on the roads without food, water and sometimes without footwear as well. This prompted the former judge of the Supreme Court to say, “Supreme Court Deserves an ‘F’ Grade For Its Handling of Migrants”.
As per the BCI, these “attacks” by purported intellectuals is an attempt to influence the court as it decides the suo moto case of migrant workers issue and the intention behind these attacks is to fulfil their (the intellectuals) “agenda to defame the government which is grappling to ameliorate the sufferings of common man”.
According to the Bar, there are only 2 or 3 advocates whose aim is to lay undue pressure on the court and wish to run it as per their dictates and the court has become aware of their “modus operandi” and thus it no longer takes notice of such comments and nefarious attacks.
It seems like the advocates that the BCI has referred to is senior advocate Dushyant Dave who is also the President of Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) and has been extremely vocal in critiquing the Supreme Court. He criticised the Supreme Court’s response to the migrant crisis when the court had said that it cannot stop the migrants walking hundreds of kilometres back to their home states. He had said that the court had failed to act as per its constitutional role to protect the basic rights of the citizens of the country. Further, a few days later, he once again commented at the Webinar organized by debrief, saying that the judiciary should have started intervention much earlier in time, at the beginning of the lockdown and said that the judiciary cannot sit and just think that the government knows best about the welfare of the people.
He is not the only lawyer who has intrepidly spoken of the apex court. Hours before the Supreme Court took suo moto cognizance of the migrants’ issues, ten lawyers including Mihir Desai, Kapil Sibal, Indira Jaising, Prashant Bhushan Navroz Seervai wrote a letter to the court on May 25. As reported by The Hindu, the letter said, “The Supreme Court’s failure to protect the rights of the hapless millions of migrant workers in March, and its failure to scrutinise carefully the executive actions, resulted in them being compelled to stay in cramped unhygienic accommodation without employment and wages and often without proper food and with a much higher risk of Covid infection.”
The criticism of the Supreme Court has clearly not gone down well with the BCI Chairman Manan Kumar Mishra as he has gone ahead and degraded the warranted criticism and questioned the integrity of former judges by saying, “people have started to believe that some former Chief Justices of High Courts or some former judges of Supreme Court who could not get a suitable berth after their superannuation, become disgruntled and start going in media and malign the system of which they were integral part for quite long period. Such people should join politics and go in public directly and face the common mass of this country. The people will deal with them properly.”
The Press Release concludes with disapproving the defamatory allegations against the Supreme Court and said, “Justice Lokur is not expected to do so,” and makes an all-encompassing declaration that “people know everything, the motive behind every statement/interview.”
The complete Press release may be read here.
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