Eight months after four Supreme Court judges slammed the administration of the apex court and questioned the manner of allotment of sensitive cases, Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra on Wednesday for the first time publicly touched on the issue and said to criticise, attack and destroy a system is easy but it is difficult and challenging to transform it into a performing one. The Chief Justice was delivering his customary speech after unfurling the national flag at the 72nd Independence Day celebrations organised by the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA).
“To criticise, attack and destroy the system is quite easy. What is difficult and challenging is to transform it into a performing one. For this, one has to transcend one’s personal ambitions or grievances and rather constructive steps need to be taken with positive mindset of reforms...With rationality, maturity, responsibility and composure,” Justice Misra said.
In January, Justices J Chelameswar, Kurian Joseph, Ranjan Gogoi and Madan lokur held an unprecedented Press conference and criticised the CJI for “arbitrarily” assigning important cases to benches headed by junior SC judges, ignoring senior ones. They also said the fate of India’s judiciary had been put in peril by discrepancies in the functioning of the top court.
Without naming the four judges, the CJI said there may be some elements that may endeavour to weaken the institution but everyone together have refused to succumb to them.
“There may be some elements that may endeavour to weaken the institution. But we refuse, we all together, to succumb to them. I will tell them and quote Alfred lord Tennyson’s ‘Ulysses’ ‘but strong in will, to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield’,” Justice Misra said.