As many as 56 former judges slammed the statement of 18 former judges, who had defended the Opposition’s vice presidential candidate B Sudershan Reddy against Home Minister Amit Shah’s criticism, suggesting that it amounted to misusing the cover of judicial independence for political convenience. This group, which included four former Supreme Court judges, former Chief Justices P Sathasivam, Ranjan Gogoi, AK Sikri and former judge MR Shah, urged their “brother judges” to “desist from lending their names to politically motivated statements.”
The 50 former judges, including five of the Supreme Court, said, “These statements are determined to cloak their political partisanship under the language of judicial independence. This practice does a great disservice to the institution we once served, as it projects judges as political actors.” They pointed to a “predictable pattern” where every major political development is followed by statements from the same group of people, which they said try to “cloak their political partisanship under the language of judicial independence.”
“Let those who have chosen the path of politics defend themselves in that realm. The institution of the judiciary must be kept above and distinct from such entanglements,” the 56 judges said in their statement. “Let those who have chosen the path of politics defend themselves in that realm,” they said in a statement, adding the institution of the judiciary must be kept above and distinct from such entanglements.
They were reacting to the statement of 18 retired judges who had termed as “unfortunate” Shah’s attack on Reddy over his judgment disbanding Salwa Judum, an armed organisation of tribal youths who fought alongside police against Naxals in Chhattisgarh, as part of a two-judge Supreme Court bench in 2011. Shah had accused Reddy of “supporting” Naxalism. He had claimed that Left Wing Extremism would have ended by 2020 in the absence of the Salwa Judum judgement. On the same day, a different group of 18 retired Supreme Court judges wrote separately to Amit Shah, objecting to his comments against Justice Reddy. They described Shah’s remarks as “unfortunate” and advised that it would be wise to refrain from “name-calling.” The former Supreme Court judges who signed the statement are A K Patnaik, Abhay Oka, Gopala Gowda, Vikramjit Sen, Kurien Joseph, Madan B Lokur, and J Chelameswar,
