Stop making ‘casual’ comments in court that reveal individual communal or gender bias, Supreme Court tells judges

‘You cannot call any part of the territory of India ‘Pakistan’… This is fundamentally wrong,’ CJI observed, referring to videos of Karnataka HC Judge, Justice V. Srishananda, who had referred to a part of Bengaluru as ‘Pakistan’

The Supreme Court on Wednesday (September 25, 2024) said judges should refrain from making “casual observations” revealing communal or gender bias during judicial proceedings live streamed across the country.

A five-judge Special Bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud was hearing a suo motu case on video clips showing a Karnataka High Court judge, Justice V. Srishananda, referring to a Muslim-dominated part of Bengaluru as ‘Pakistan’ and making sexist remarks to a woman lawyer during two separate judicial proceedings on June 6 and August 28.

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“You cannot call any part of the territory of India ‘Pakistan’… This is fundamentally wrong under the Constitution,” Chief Justice Chandrachud said orally.

The Supreme Court emphasised that judges must strictly adhere to the values of the Constitution rather than make misogynistic or prejudicial comments unrelated to the case in hand.

The Bench preferred to pass its judicial order in open court despite advice given by Attorney General R. Venkataramani and Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to opt for an in-house procedure. Both law officers were apprehensive that the observations made in the Supreme Court hearing during the suo motu proceedings would be later misrepresented on social media.

“The answer to sunlight is more sunlight. The answer is not to close our doors and shut out everything,” Chief Justice Chandrachud responded.

The Bench, in its order, said casual, off-the-cuff remarks by judges would not only show them in a negative light but impact the entire judicial institution adversely.

“Casual observations may reflect individual bias, particularly if they are directed at a particular community or gender,” the Bench underscored.

Chief Justice Chandrachud said the judiciary, lawyers and litigants, especially those who appear in court as petitioners-in-person, need to exercise restraint in their language and conduct. They have to realise that it was not just the people physically present in the courtroom who were watching them. The demands of the electronic age require them to practice modulation during court proceedings accessible to the outer world through videoconferencing and live streaming.

The court closed the proceedings against Justice Srishananda on noting that he had made a “contrite apology” in open court on September 21, the day after the Supreme Court took suo motu cognisance of the video clips.

“Bearing in mind the contrite apology tendered by the judge in open court proceedings, we consider it in the interest of justice and keeping in mind the dignity of the institution to not pursue this matter further,” the Supreme Court ordered.

Justice Srishananda had made a statement in open court that his words were taken out of context and he had not intended to hurt anyone. He had tendered an apology “if any section of the society or if any individuals were indirectly or directly hurt”.

The maiden hearing on September 20 saw the five-judge Bench of the CJI and four senior-most judges of the apex court seek a report on the video clips of Justice Srishananda circulating on social media.

The report said the videos were part of the recordings of the Karnataka High Court. The High Court’s live streaming platform has a subscriber base of 1.38 lakh. The Registrar General of the High Court had furnished the Supreme Court with a transcript of what happened during the June 6 and August 28 proceedings.

This was the second instance the five-judge Bench had assembled to caution a High Court judge to stay in line and refrain from making derogatory remarks during live-streamed court proceedings. On August 7, the Bench presided over suo motu proceedings against Punjab and Haryana High Court judge Rajbir Sehrawat over observations made in court.

In its judicial order, the Bench had similarly cautioned judges against making “random, gratuitous and unwarranted remarks” in the course of hearings and to be mindful that proceedings were live-streamed. The Supreme Court had warned judges that such comments, proliferated on video, tend to cause “incalculable harm to the sanctity of the judicial process”.

“In an age where there is widespread reporting of every proceeding which takes place in the court, particularly in the context of live-streaming which is intended to provide access to justice to citizens, it is all the more necessary that judges exercise due restraint and responsibility in observations made in the course of proceedings… We hope and trust that circumspection shall be exercised in the future,” the Bench, also comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna, B.R. Gavai, Surya Kant and Hrishiskesh Roy, had observed.

In fact, the 16th tenet of the ‘Restatement of the Values of Judicial Life’, a code of judicial ethics adopted by the Supreme Court in 1997, required “every judge at all times to be conscious that he is under the public gaze and there should be no act or omission by him which is unbecoming of the high office he occupies and the public esteem in which the office is held”.

So far, Chief Justice Chandrachud has refused to gag reportage or social media posts sourced from livestreamed court proceedings. Live-streaming was described as the true realisation of the open court system in the Supreme Court’s Swapnil Tripathi judgment of 2018.

On Wednesday, Chief Justice Chandrachud said the videoconferencing and live streaming began during the pandemic years to counter the threat of stasis in judicial proceedings.

“What began as a necessity, videoconferencing and live streaming emerged as an outreach facility of the courts,” the Chief Justice observed.

Published - September 25, 2024 11:44 am IST