Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra spoke for the first time on the criticism of fellow judges in his Independence Day speech organized by the Supreme Court Bar Association. ” To criticize, attack and destroy the system is quite easy what is difficult and challenging is to transform it into a performing one. For that one has to transcend one’s personal ambitions or grievances rather constructive steps need to be taken with positive mindset”, said CJI Misra. In January this year Justices J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph has accused that CJI Misra is allocating the cases in selective and undemocratic manner. They also said the ‘democracy is in danger’.
CJI’s measured response to the dissenter judges, who maligned the name of the Supreme Court for questionable political ends, is a call for restoring substance in public discourse. The underlying message of CJI’s response is that it is easy to criticize but one must work towards addressing the deficiencies. ” For raising the standard of judiciary one has to transcend one’s personal ambitions or grievances. Constructive steps need to be taken with positive mindset of reform, no matter how so ever small with maturity, responsibility, and composure. Only then the institution can go to higher and greater heights”, he said.
This message is not only relevant for the dissenting judges but also carries value for the current breed of ‘faux activists’ who have confused noise with dissent and made it a virtue. PM Modi has also repeatedly asserted that while criticism is the cornerstone of democracy, it should be constructive and not for the sake of criticism only. The noise in the name of dissent leads to dilution and degradation of public discourse, as it is evident from the rabid agenda-pushing of the opposition against PM Modi which more often than not leads to a blatant stance against National interest.
The Congress party allying with some other opposition parties brought an impeachment motion against CJI. It was for the first time in the history of Indian judicial system that impeachment motion was brought against the chief justice of Supreme Court of India. The opposition MPs criticized the judges publicly in parliament house which eroded the public trust in judiciary-the last resort for justice. The Supreme Court, in a hearing of PIL, said the unprecedented attack by parliamentarians and media on the judiciary is ‘unfortunate’.
Some judges in the Supreme Court affiliate themselves to a certain ideology and started deciding the merit of decisions on basis of their ideology. So the ideological differences led to a tussle between them and this was the reason the fight among the judges became public.