Prem Shankar Jha: The Shadow of Haren Pandya’s Case Lies Long Over Justice Arun Mishra
To say that the
Supreme Court’s verdict of contempt of court against Prashant Bhushan has
shocked civil society in India would be an understatement. There has been an
outpouring of dismay and anger in which even attorney general K.K. Venugopal
has joined. Most of the protest has focussed on the blow that punishing Bhushan
will deal to civil liberties, notably the freedom to express an opinion,
the freedom to differ and the freedom to criticise – without which democracy
cannot survive.
But one feature of the
judgment has not received the attention it deserves: the Supreme Court is the
court of final appeal in the country. But in this case, it is both
prosecutor and judge. As the Latin phrase goes, Quis custodiet ipsos
custodes?, or who will guard the guardians? By filing a suo
moto case against Bhushan before itself, the Supreme Court has forced
us to ask this question. And to it, there can be only one answer: that task has
now devolved upon the people of India. Today the Supreme Court has forced us to
sit in judgment upon it. We now have a duty to perform.
Of all the judges
in the Supreme Court…
Let me start by asking
one question: There are 33 judges in the Supreme Court apart from the chief
justice. So why did Chief Justice S.A. Bobde not even notice Prashant Bhushan’s
application that another bench conduct the contempt proceedings and leave it to
Justice Arun Mishra to head the bench that would hear this case? Did he
not know that Mishra had a history of animosity with Prashant Bhushan? That animosity was
evident even as recently as a year ago when Mishra had severely chastised him
in his court for daring to lodge a PIL seeking reinvestigation of the 2003
murder of BJP leader Haren Pandya in Ahmedabad. The CBI’s investigation
abounded with bloomers and the Gujarat high court had been constrained to
acquit the 12 men convicted in 2007 of the killing by a trial court…
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