After #SupremeCourt #JudgesPressConference: Who said what

The Supreme Court is divided, with four senior-most judges – Justices Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan Lokur and Kurian Joseph – pointing out at a press conference on Friday the urgent need to preserve the judiciary if democracy is to be protected, and hinting at the rift between the senior judiciary and Chief Justice Dipak Misra.

“We met the CJI (Dipak Misra) with a specific request which unfortunately couldn’t convince him that we were right therefore, we were left with no choice except to communicate it to the nation that please take care of the institution,” Justice Chelameswar said.

Reactions poured in to the shocking revelations, from the judiciary, political parties as well as ordinary citizens on social media, and ranged from fears of damage to the judiciary to allegations of a spin being given to events, to attacks on the four judges.

Advocate Indira Jaising called it a “historic press conference”. “It was very well done. I think we, the people of India, have a right to know what is going on within the judiciary and I welcome this,” she said, ANI reported.

But retired Justice RS Sodhi was quoted as saying that “all four judges should be impeached, they have no business to sit there and deliver verdicts anymore. This trade unionism is wrong. Democracy in danger is not for them to say. We have Parliament, courts, police functioning”.

The letter that the four judges had written to the CJI about selective assignment of important cases was also on circulation on Twitter. Among the many things it said, was: “Cases having far-reaching consequences for the nation were assigned to benches of their preference without any rationale. We are not mentioning details only to avoid embarrassing the institution but note that such departures have already damaged the image of this institution to some extent.”

The trigger of the presser is believed to be the investigation into the death of CBI judge BH Loya.

“There is an issue of assignment of a case which is raised in that letter,” Justice Gogoi said at the presser. When asked whether the case was about the suspicion being raised around judge Loya’s death, he said “yes”.

Former Attorney-General Soli Sarabjee reportedly said “I’m very upset about this, I wish the four Supreme Court judges hadn’t done this. This will have severe repercussions on judiciary,” while retired SC judge Mukul Mudgal pointed out that “there must be some serious reason that they were left with no other option but to hold a press conference”.

While the Congress expressed “concern about the functioning of the Supreme Court”, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy said of the judges: “We can’t criticise them, they are men of great integrity and have sacrificed a lot for their legal career, where they could’ve made money as senior counsels. We must respect them. PM must ensure that the four judges and CJI, in fact the entire Supreme Court, come to one opinion and proceed further.”

MP Sharad Yadav tweeted: “Very serious & critical that four sitting Judges of d Supreme Court of India for d first time in d history of India came out before d media to air their grievances. Judiciary is one of d most important pillars of democracy & not only this but other pillars are also in danger.”