Legal Eagle: Retired Judges Attending VHP Meet Sends Out The Wrong Signals

After the news emerged that 30 retired high court and Supreme Court judges attended a Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) meet this month, a second controversy broke out over the propriety of the 50th CJI Dhananjaya Chandrachud inviting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to his home to take part in the puja for Lord Ganesh.

A document titled ‘Restatement of Judicial Values’ published in May 1997 declares judges should practice aloofness in eschewing meeting litigants, the media or politicians.

The government is the largest litigant in the Supreme Court and in the 25 high courts. The Prime Minister heads the government at the centre which means he is a litigant who is having cases before the CJI. When he is seen praying to Lord Ganesh and performing aarti, in which the wife of the CJI is also seen taking part, sends a wrong signal to society.

This is what led to outspoken senior advocate Indira Jaisingh declaring she had lost confidence in the impartiality of CJI Chandrachud. Coupled with his silence on the 30 retired judges attending the VHP meet, the CJI is sending out the wrong signals.

It is not that this has not happened before, because the then 37th CJI KG Balakrishnan who allegedly had a dubious reputation, (like the 39th CJI Altamas Kabir) was invited to an iftar party held by the former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2009. Balakrishnan’s name for judgeship was reportedly approved by Kerala chief minister Karunakaran.

An outspoken retired Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju divulged that a Madras high court judge who was known to be corrupt was retained by the Congress government because the political party that was in power in Tamil Nadu threatened to withdraw support to the minority Manmohan Singh government if this corrupt judge was not confirmed. Overruling Katju’s protests, this corrupt judge was confirmed.

To revert to the fact alleged in the news report by The Wire and also by the Indian Express, among the 30 retired judges of the Supreme Court and high courts who have taken part in the function of the VHP, at least two retired Supreme Court judges attended the VHP legal cell’s day-long meeting on judicial reforms held on a Sunday, according to the Indian Express.

Former Supreme Court judges Adarsh Kumar Goel, who went on to serve as the chairperson of the National Green Tribunal after he retired from the apex court in 2018 till 2023, and Justice Hemant Gupta was among the 30 retired judges who attended the VHP event.

When contacted for their version, Justice Gupta clarified the event was held to discuss the current issues in the country and he was not among those who spoke. “It is a legal body carrying out its activities and I, as a citizen, have the right to attend any function which is not prohibited by law,” he said.

Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel did not deny he attended the event. “Please consult with the VHP legal cell for the same,” his secretary told the reporter who was seeking a confirmation from the judge himself.

These controversies have come in the wake of the Bar Council of India condemning Justice Arun Kumar Mishra for extolling Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2021 for being a “versatile genius who thought globally but acted locally” during a global conference of judges. After he demitted office in the same year, the 47th CJI Sharad Bobde visited the ancestral home of the RSS founder, Dr Keshav Baliram Hedgwar, in September 2021.

These actions of CJIs who head the judicial family in the country raise the question as to whether some of the judges at the helm of the 25 high courts and the Supreme Court share the ideology of the government which was why Indira Gandhi superseded Justices Shelat, Hegde and Grover.

Like CJI Chandrachud, CJI Bobde who hails from Nagpur, was born into a Deshastha Rivvedi Brahmin Marathi family. The RSS will hold such judges in deference which is why their roots cannot be discarded. But what is astounding is the VHP event attended by these 30 retired judges was organised by the “vidhi prakoshth” or legal cell of the VHP, apart from law and justice minister Arjun Ram Meghwal and VHP president Alok Kumar presumably mixing informally with these 30 retired judges. The discussed topics were the legal dispute over the Varanasi and Mathura temples and religious conversions which are ongoing issues before the Constitutional courts.

Before he was elevated to the Supreme Court in 2018, Justice Gupta was the Chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court and the acting Chief Justice of the Patna High Court. After he retired from the Supreme Court in 2022, Justice Gupta was appointed chairperson of the India International Arbitration Centre. As a Supreme Court judge, he delivered many important judgments, including upholding the Karnataka High Court’s decision permitting the ban on school girls wearing hijabs in classrooms in 2022.

The VHP which is at the forefront of the Sangh Parivar family, declared: “We had invited retired judges of the Supreme Court and the high courts. Several collective issues needed brainstorming such as the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, the handing back of temples under government control (to society), illegal conversions and many other issues. The aim was there should be a free exchange of views between the judges and the VHP so that both inculcate an understanding of each other’s viewpoints,” VHP president, Alok Kumar declared.

Be that as it may, the actions of these judges who have demitted office imply a mindset that is the anti-thesis of Constitutional values and the secularism enshrined in the preamble apart from the Restatement of Judicial Values because, after demitting office, judges still use the honorific “Justice” before their names. They are invited to lecture at the state judicial training academies apart from going on lecture tours to foreign universities.

Olav Albuquerque holds a PhD in law and is a senior journalist and advocate at the Bombay High Court

Published on: Friday, September 20, 2024, 06:00 AM IST