The Supreme Court on Friday expressed concern over the increasing cases of judges receiving threats and abusive messages and pulled up the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the CBI for “not helping” the judiciary.
Pointing out that the judiciary is dealing with several criminal cases involving gangsters and high-profile persons, the SC said in many cases judges of the trial courts as well as high courts are facing both physical threats and mental harassment through abusive messages on WhatsApp or Facebook.
“In one or two places, the court ordered CBI enquiry. It is very sorry to say CBI has done nothing in more than one year. At one place, I know, CBI has done nothing. I think we have expected some changes in the CBI’s attitude. But there is no change in the attitude of the CBI. I am sorry to observe this but this is the situation,” said a bench of Chief Justice NV Ramana and Justice Surya Kant.
The bench told Attorney General KK Venugopal that in criminal cases where high-profile persons are involved, if they do not get expected orders from the court they start maligning the judiciary.
“This is a new trend developed in the country unfortunately. There is no freedom to a judge even to give a complaint. Such a situation is created,” said the bench, which was hearing a suo motu case on the issue of safeguarding courts and protecting judges in the wake of recent incident of alleged mowing down of a judge at Dhanbad.
The CJI said though judges complaints to the Chief Justice or the concerned head of the district, when they complaint to the police or the CBI or others, these agencies do not respond.
“They think it is not a priority item for them. The IB, CBI they are not helping the judiciary at all. I am making this statement with a sense of responsibility and I know the incident that is the reason I am saying this. I do not want to divulge more than this,” the CJI said.
The bench termed the issue “serious” and told Venugopal that some interest has to be taken to help the judiciary.
Admitting that judges dealing with criminal cases are very vulnerable and there has to be safety measures for them, Venugopal said he would file his written note on the issue.
The bench also issued notice to the CBI after it was informed by the Jharkhand Government that investigation into the death of the judge in Dhanbad has been handed over to the probe agency.
The court asked all the States to file status reports explaining what security they are providing to the judicial officers.
At the outset, Jharkhand’s advocate general Rajiv Ranjan told the bench that the State had constituted a 22-member special investigation team (SIT) which had arrested the two drivers of the auto-rickshaw which had hit the judge when he was on a morning walk on July 28.
Referring to the Dhanbad incident, the bench said it is an unfortunate case where a young judicial officer lost his life.
“We cannot ignore the State’s negligence. We know in the Dhanbad area there are mafias, coal mafias. Advocates were killed, judges were attacked but in spite of that, the state has not done anything,” the bench observed.