Missive of Retired Judges to the CJI is unjustified

 

Sometimes extraordinary measures need to be adopted to deal with an extraordinary situation. The manner in which the peace was being hijacked by some rioters in different places of Uttar Pradesh after the Friday prayers in mosques was highly disturbing for the common people. There could be no room for any doubt that it was being planned by some and executed by namazis. Yogi government has restored the peace sooner than it was expected by administering the ‘bulldozer medicine’. The preliminary revelations have made it clear that the vicious radical PFI has been responsible for the state-wide trouble.

But what is more troublesome is the letter of some former judges of the Supreme Court and the High Courts and some advocates to the Chief Justice of India requesting him to take suo motu cognizance of the use of bulldozers to stop the razing of the houses of the rioters. As far as the identification of culprits is concerned, nobody is expected to know better than them that real culprits mostly go scot-free, and it takes years to bring them to book. And yet if these worthies want to frustrate the steps of the government, it is not difficult to infer their real intentions. In fact, it has been the legitimate expectation of the general public that they should have used their influence in asking the rioters to adopt the peaceful means to register their protests.

The country has seen innumerable sits-in and demonstrations. Such peaceful protests and agitations have mostly been supported by the people but the pelting of stones on shops and others in the manner it was being done by the extremists/terrorists of Kashmir can never be endorsed. The way this letter petition has been written by the judges appears that letter writers are inclined to save rogues and rascals. Dharnas of Anna Hazare at Jantar Mantar a few years ago and many candle marches were taken out at India Gate, particularly for the justice to Nirbhaya and it got nationwide support. But when one sees the crowd of namazis coming out of the mosques and throwing stones at shops and damaging public property one shudders to think of their violence. Traders close their shops due to the fear of the namazis.

Some judges have the misconceived notion of being monarchs, and they can pass orders as per their whims. The fact is that constitution does not give any such whimsical powers to judges. Only two years ago a former Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court had ordered to remove the posters bearing the photographs of those who were to be found out as they were suspected to be responsible for creating trouble in Lucknow during Anti-CAA protests. His order was patently wrong, but the Executive had no choice but to comply with it. Everybody was aghast as to why the judge, who has since retired, was overreaching his jurisdiction and behaving in a bizarre manner, which was totally unbecoming of the post that he held.

Lawlessness cannot be allowed to rob the peace of millions of citizens of the state. These judges have, no doubt, written the letter to the Hon’ble CJI for cheap publicity. If they were so concerned with the rule of law, they should have asked the Executive to tactfully handle the situation and at the same time appealed to namazis not to take the law into their own hands.