The threat from within to the integrity and impartiality of the Supreme Court that four seniormost judges of the court highlighted at an extraordinary press conference has profound implications for India’s democracy.
“AN EXTRAORDINARY EVENT IN THE HISTORY of any nation, and of this institution, the judiciary,” was how Justice J. Chelameswar, the seniormost among the four judges—the others were Justices Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B. Lokur and Kurian Joseph—who had called at short notice a press conference at his residence in New Delhi on January 12 to alert the nation about the ongoing crisis of confidence in the Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra, described the development.
Two weeks after the press conference, the issues that forced the judges to take the extraordinary decision to go public on their differences with the CJI were nowhere near resolution, despite the CJI getting enough opportunities to discuss them with his four colleagues face to face.
The Supreme Court has been functioning normally ever since January 12, with the CJI and 24 judges hearing the cases listed before them and delivering judgments. As they presided over the benches at court numbers 2,3,4 and 5 at the Supreme Court, the four judges themselves presented a veneer of normalcy and seemed to observe equanimity in the face of the grave challenges to the institution that forced them to take the extreme step of holding a press conference to air their differences with the CJI.
Although the conduct of the four judges in holding the press conference constitutes a serious breach of the professional code that binds them, what they said at the conference made one wonder whether their not doing so would have resulted in the breach of the oath they took as judges. The oath they took while being sworn in as judges requires them to perform the duties of their office without fear or favour or affection or ill-will, and uphold the Constitution and the laws.
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