The Supreme Court Collegium’s reiteration of recommendation of five advocates as High Judges, reveals that two persons R John Sathyan for Madras High Court, Somasekhar Sundaresan for Mumbai High Court were blocked on Intelligence Bureau’s report citing their social media posts against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Government. The Supreme Court Collegium comprising Chief Justice of Indian DY Chandrachud and Justices SK Kaul and KM Joseph rejected the IB’s inputs and said that the rejection by Government is against the freedom of speech and expressions.
The Collegium rejected the IB report citing the social media posts of John Sathyan, critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said that the rejection is against the freedom of speech and expressions. The statement of the Collegium reproduced the IB report against Sathyan. ““As per open sources, two posts made by him, i.e. sharing of an article published in ‘The Quint’, which was critical of the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi; and another post regarding committing of suicide by medical aspirant Anitha, who ended her life in 2017 since she was unable to clear NEET, portraying it as a killing by ‘political betrayal’ and a tag stating ‘shame of you India’ came to notice,” said the IB note reproduced in the Collegium statement.
“The Intelligence Bureau has reported that he enjoys a good personal and professional image and that nothing adverse has come to notice against his integrity. Shri Sathyan belongs to the Christian community. The IB report notes that he does not have any overt political leanings.
In this backdrop, the adverse comments of the IB extracted above in respect of posts made by him i.e. sharing an article published in ‘The Quint’ and another post regarding committing of suicide by a medical aspirant candidate in 2017 will not impinge on the suitability, character or integrity of Shri Sathyan,” said Collegium reiterating its recommendation.