VAKASHA SACHDEV: In Reply to Contempt Case, Bhushan Offers Detailed Critique of SC
NB: The Hon’ble
justices who launched a contempt case against Bhushan said that his ‘statements
on Twitter have brought the administration of justice in disrepute and are
capable of undermining the dignity and authority of the Institution of Supreme
Court in general and the office of the Chief Justice of India in particular, in
the eyes of public at large.’ The hon'ble justices might benefit from an analysis of the
manner in which the SC disposed of the matter of the death of
Judge Loya. Did the procedure followed by the CJI enhance the stature of the Court? Did the manner in which the SC and the then CJI disposed of the sexual harassment allegations by
a female employee enhance the SC’s reputation?
Do not one’s own behaviour and conduct also become a factor in one’s reputation? Are we obliged by law to praise wrongdoing (or keep silent) because of the high office of the wrong-doer? The outstanding feature of the behaviour of most of our elected leaders and some of our senior judges is the absence of shame. They demand the honour accruing to the office they hold (or held in the past), but they cannot understand that by throwing their own dignity into the dustbin, that honour evaporates. Do descriptions of misconduct cause disrepute, or the misconduct itself? What purpose is served by shooting the messenger instead of paying attention to the message? DS
Advocate Prashant Bhushan has come out swinging in his reply to the Supreme Court’s
Do not one’s own behaviour and conduct also become a factor in one’s reputation? Are we obliged by law to praise wrongdoing (or keep silent) because of the high office of the wrong-doer? The outstanding feature of the behaviour of most of our elected leaders and some of our senior judges is the absence of shame. They demand the honour accruing to the office they hold (or held in the past), but they cannot understand that by throwing their own dignity into the dustbin, that honour evaporates. Do descriptions of misconduct cause disrepute, or the misconduct itself? What purpose is served by shooting the messenger instead of paying attention to the message? DS
Advocate Prashant Bhushan has come out swinging in his reply to the Supreme Court’s
contempt
case against him for recent tweets, defending the views expressed in
those tweets about current Chief Justice of India SA Bobde’s photos on a
superbike, as well as his statement that the Supreme Court has played a role in
the destruction of Indian democracy over the last six years. “It is the essence of
a democracy that all institutions, including the judiciary, function for the
citizens and the people of this country, and they have every right to freely
and fairly discuss the state of affairs of an institution and build public
opinion in order to reform the institution.”
In the reply affidavit
dated 2 August, Bhushan has also provided a detailed critique of the Supreme
Court’s decisions and decision-making to justify his opinion of the court,
including a list of problematic incidents and orders of the court under the
last four CJIs, broken down by their respective tenures. The longstanding
activist lawyer, who has advocated for judicial accountability and against
corruption for several decades now, submitted that his criticism of the court
has been “outspoken” but that it has been thought through and made “with the
highest sense of responsibility.”
He has argued that
what he tweeted is his bonafide impression of the way the court had been
functioning in the last few years when it comes to transparency and acting as a
check and balance against the government, especially the role played by the
last four CJIs – Justices JS Khehar, Dipak Misra, Ranjan Gogoi and now, SA
Bobde – when it comes to this. “Such expression of
opinion however outspoken, disagreeable or however unpalatable [to] some,
cannot constitute contempt of court,” he says.
WHAT IS THE
CONTEMPT CASE ABOUT? The contempt case in
question was initiated suo motu by the Supreme Court against Bhushan on 21
July. Justices Arun Mishra, BR Gavai and Krishna Murari took up the case and
conducted a brief
hearing on 22 July, adjourning the case till 5 August so that Bhushan could
prepare his reply. The judges have said
the contempt case relates to the following tweets by Bhushan on his Twitter
handle...
NB: Here's an interesting citation from an important book on Nazism written in the 1930’s:
Franz Neumann, Behemoth, The Structure and Practice of National Socialism; (repub 1963, p 27). A pdf file may be read here:
(The counter revolution) ‘…tried many forms and devices, but soon learned that it could come to power only with the help of the state machine and never against it… the Kapp Putsch of 1920 and the Hitler Pustch of 1923 had proved this.. In the centre of the counter revolution stood the judiciary. Unlike administrative acts, which rest on considerations of convenience and expediency, judicial decisions rest on law, that is on right and wrong, and they always enjoy the limelight of publicity. Law is perhaps the most pernicious of all weapons in political struggles, precisely because of the halo that surrounds the concepts of right and justice… ‘Right’, Hocking has said, ‘is psychologically a claim whose infringe-ment is met with a resentment deeper than the injury would satisfy, a resentment that may amount to passion for which men will risk life and property as they would never do for an expediency’. When it becomes ‘political’, justice breeds hatred and despair among those it singles out for attack. Those whom it favours, on the other hand, develop a profound contempt for the very value of justice, they know that it can be purchased by the powerful. As a device for strengthening one political group at the expense of others, for eliminating enemies and assisting political allies, law then threatens the fundamental convictions upon which the tradition of our civilization rests… DS
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