President of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) and renowned Senior Advocate Dr Adish C Aggarwala has written an open letter to Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud, asking him to ignore the wild and imaginary accusations made against the Registry.
The letter was written by the SCBA President to the CJI on December 7, talking in length about letters written by certain senior lawyers, alleging improper listing of cases before the Apex Court.
The SCBA President said that the assignment of cases was not open to question on the judicial or the administrative side and, as a corollary, it is neither required to be by way of a speaking order nor is it required to be justified by responding to any person calling it into question.
The letter added that writing of such letters was malicious and amounted to embarrassing the Administration.
The letter said that time has come where one should put an end to the practice of writing such letters.
By putting a stop to such a practice, the interests of the Bar and the administration of justice will be subserved, he said.
Aggarwala further said that it was essential to curb every attempt to scandalise the court mechanism with insinuations and falsehood, aimed at mischievously shaking the confidence of the public incthe courts.
The SCBA president also praised the incumbent CJI for giving confidence to younger members of the bar to argue cases, which may have invited the ire of senior lawyers who write such open letters.
He said those who are unable to afford unrealistically high fees are also enthusiastically seeking justice and are being given a fair hearing, and relief as per the merit of their case. Perhaps the said treatment at par of younger members of the Bar has not gone down well with a few senior lawyers who have started making concerted efforts to overawe this system.”
The letter further made a fervent appeal that CJI Chandrachud ignore such self-serving and malicious, motivated and dubious attacks on the independence of the judiciary.
The SCBA chief said that if the Chief Justice of India succumbed to such pressure tactics, it would sound a death knell to the independence of this great institution at the hands of certain vested interests.
The issue of listing of cases before the Supreme Court has recently garnered attention.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan on Wednesday wrote to the Supreme Court Registry raising grievance over the allegedly arbitrary breach of listing rules when it came to listing certain cases.
Senior Advocate and former SCBA president Dushyant Dave too had recently written to CJI DY Chandrachud expressing anguish over the listing of sensitive cases.
In an open letter addressed to the CJI, Dave claimed that many cases which were being heard by certain benches, were shifted out and listed before other benches. This, Dave claimed, was in violation of the Supreme Court Rules and the Handbook on Practice and Procedure of the Court, which govern listing of cases.
He had added that such a practice does not augur well for the institution, and thus pressed for corrective steps to be taken.