Above: (Left) Rajeev Dhavan and CJI Dipak Misra
The issue of lawyers acting in a disrespectful manner with the judges of the Supreme Court has, of late, become widespread and the reaction of the court has been strong. In two recent cases, both involving senior advocates, one’s advocacy NGO was fined Rs 25 lakh, while the other was severely rebuked.
While in the first, regarding the UP Medical College case, senior counsel Prashant Bhushan’s advocacy group CJAR had filed two similar petitions before two benches, and was hauled up for forum hunting. While the first petition, filed by Kamini Jaiswal, Bhushan’s associate in CJAR, was dismissed, the second too faced the same fate, though in this case the Supreme Court bench imposed a cost of Rs 25 lakh as well.
On Monday (December 11) senior counsel Rajeev Dhavan suddenly announced that he was quitting court practice. In his letter (see below) he said he was quitting because of the “humiliating end to the Delhi case”.
Addressing the Chief Justice, he said in his letter “You are entitled to take back the Senior Gown conferred on me”. He added that he would like to keep it as a memento.
Interestingly, CJI Dipak Misra had commented on the showdown during the Parsi marriage case where he had referred to the shouting match by senior lawyers including Kapil Sibal, Dhavan etc. they wanted the hearing of the Babri-Ram Janmabhoomi case to be pushed back to after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
—India Legal Bureau