Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president Adish C Aggarwala on Thursday wrote to Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud expressing “shock” at the practice of a senior lawyer to write letters to the CJI. In the letter, senior advocate Aggarwala requested Justice Chandrachud to ignore “such malicious, motivated and dubious attempts”, saying that these are nothing but “self-serving attacks on the independence of the judiciary”.
Aggarwala’s letter came a day after senior advocate Dushyant Dave wrote an open letter to CJI D Y Chandrachud expressing anguish over “certain happenings” in the listing of cases and their reallocation to other benches in the Supreme Court. Dave had sought immediate corrective measures in these matters. Responding to this letter, the SCBA president wrote, “To my utter shock, I have received a public letter which is stated to be ‘an open letter’ to your lordship by a senior member of the Bar.”
Adish C Aggarwala also cited past incidents when Dushyant Dave had written letters to the Supreme Court judges including the CJI. He mentioned how Dave had written to CJI Ranjan Gogoi in 2019 alleging irregular listing of two Adani Group cases before a vacation bench. Then in September 2020, Dushyant Dave wrote to Chief Justice SA Bobde alleging that he was not allowed to speak at the farewell of Justice Arun Mishra.
“If the Chief Justice of India succumbs to such pressure tactics, it would sound a death knell to the independence of this great institution at the hands of certain vested interests,” Aggarwala said in the letter. He wrote that a growing tendency has emerged to write such letters to sitting CJIs to “exert undue pressure” on the administration of justice. He added that such letters are written with respect to a few selected cases and at the behest of some influential litigants.
SCBA president Adish C Aggarwala further said that “undignified behavior” with judges by some counsel a few days before their retirement has become a common phenomenon and is 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 wrote.
Aggarwala stressed that the administration cannot waste its precious time entertaining every letter making wild and imaginary accusations. He said that the assignment of cases to benches is not open to question, and the CJI is not required to justify such decisions nor need to respond to such allegations of improper bench allocation.
“The writing of such letters is therefore malicious, and calculated to embarrass the Administration”, he said, stressing the need to put an end to such ‘open letters’ to the top judiciary by senior lawyers. “The time has come where one should put an end to the practice of writing of such letters,” Aggarwala wrote.
“This will subserve the interest of the Bar and will strengthen the Administration of Justice. It is essential to curb every attempt to scandalize the court mechanisms with insinuations and falsehood, aimed at mischievously shaking the confidence of the public in our courts,” he further added.
“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,” Aggarwala said.
He said the Bar has full faith and reposes full confidence in the neutrality and unprecedented administrative skill of the CJI and other judges of the Supreme Court. “After your lordship took over as Chief Justice of India, all administrative issues have been streamlined right from mentioning of matters, listing of cases and other issues concerning the registry,” he said.
“While heading one of the three organs of the State, the Chief Justice of India is bound to encounter some detractors who could be canvassing for disgruntled litigants who couldn’t secure the relief they desired,” the letter said.
It is notable that in his letter to the CJI, Dushyant Dave, a former SCBA president, had said he was deeply anguished at certain happenings about the listing and ‘sudden transfer’ of cases by the apex court registry.
He had added that some cases were sensitive in nature involving “human rights, freedom of speech, democracy, and functioning of statutory and constitutional institutions”. Dave had expressed regret that he had to write the open letter as efforts by some lawyers to meet the CJI personally did not yield any result.