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Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president and senior advocate Adish C. Aggarwala
| Photo Credit: The Hindu
Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president and senior advocate Adish C. Aggarwala wrote to Chief Justice of India (CJI) D.Y. Chandrachud on December 7 expressing “shock” about an open letter addressed to the top judge by a senior member of the Bar.
Mr. Aggarwala’s letter came a day after senior advocate Dushyant Dave wrote an open letter to the CJI expressing anguish over the shifting of cases, some of which are sensitive, from one Bench to another.
The SCBA president said the administration could not waste its precious time entertaining every letter making “wild and imaginary accusations”.
He said assignment of cases was not open to question on the judicial or the administrative side.
“The writing of such letters is therefore malicious, and calculated to embarrass the administration. The time has come where one should put an end to the practice of writing of such letters… It is essential to curb every attempt to scandalise the court mechanisms with insinuations and falsehood, aimed at mischievously shaking the confidence of the public in our courts,” Mr. Aggarwala wrote.
He said the Bar had faith and confidence in the neutrality and administrative skill of the CJI and other judges of the apex court.
‘Undue pressure’
Mr. Aggarwala said, of late, a growing tendency had emerged of writing letters to sitting CJIs to “exert undue pressure” on the administration of justice. Such letters, he said, were written demonstratively with respect to a few selected cases and at the behest of some influential litigants.
He said “undignified behaviour” with judges by some counsel a few days before their retirement had become a common phenomenon and was aimed at attracting publicity and creating an element of uneasiness among the judges.
“Owing to this misbehaviour by some senior counsel, the Bar suffers disgrace and the harmony between the Bar and the Bench gets disturbed. The ill-behaving lawyers still stand to benefit because they attract clients who want to put pressure on the courts to decide cases in a certain manner,” he said.
