New Delhi: Justice J.B. Pardiwala, one of the judges in the Supreme Court bench which had been critical of Bharatiya Janata Party leader Nupur Sharma’s anti-Islam comments, has said that personal attacks on judges makes them consider what the media thinks more than what the law thinks. The judge also called for the regulation of social media to this end.
NDTV has reported that the judge, speaking at a public event on Sunday, July 3, said that “personal attacks on judges for their judgments lead to a dangerous scenario.”
LiveLaw has reported that the occasion was the Second Justice HR Khanna Memorial National Symposium, hosted by Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University and National Law University, Odisha, with the CAN Foundation.
A bench of the Supreme Court on July 1 had come down heavily on Sharma for her remarks on national television against Prophet Mohammed, observing that it was made either for cheap publicity, political agenda or some nefarious activities.
“The way she has ignited emotions across the country. This lady is single-handedly responsible for what is happening in the country. We saw the debate on how she was incited. But the way she said all this and later says she was a lawyer, it is shameful. She should apologise to the whole country,” Justice Surya Kant said.
The bench, of which Justice Pardiwala was a part, refused Sharma’s plea for clubbing of FIRs lodged in various states against her over the remark.
While several opposition parties hailed the court for its castigation of Sharma, several others were critical of it.
Additionally, both judges were targeted on social media, with Justice Kant’s name trending on Twitter nationally.
Justice Pardiwala said, according to the report, said that personal attacks pave the way for judges to “think about what the media thinks instead of what the law really thinks.”
“This harms the rule of law,” he said.
The judge also commented on social media’s use by those who wished to politicise legal and constitutional matters.
“Social and digital media is primarily resorted to expressing personalised opinions more against the judges, rather than a constructive critical appraisal of their judgments. This is what is harming the judicial institution and lowering its dignity. The remedy of judgments does not lie with social media but with higher courts in the hierarchy. Judges never speak through their tongue, only through their judgments. In India, which cannot be defined as a completely mature or defined democracy, social media is employed frequently to politicise purely legal and constitutional issues,” he said.
Justice Pardiwala’s comments, in turn, were met with criticism on social media, primarily from those who disagreed with the Supreme Court bench’s oral observations on Nupur Sharma.
‘Regulation’
He also called for the regulation of digital and social media to preserve the rule of law under the constitution.
To illustrate how judges dealing with cases which have political overtones may get “a bit shaken,” Justice Pardiwala cited the Ayodhya title dispute.
“It was a land and title dispute but by the time the final verdict came to be delivered, the issue attained political overtones. It was conveniently forgotten that someday or the other some judge had to decide the contentious civil dispute which was indisputably the oldest litigation pending in the court of the country running into thousands of pages. This is where the heart of any judicial proceeding before the constitutional court may disappear and the judges deciding the dispute may get a bit shaken, which is antithetic to the rule of law. This is not healthy for the rule of law,” he said.
The Supreme Court, in this case, ruled in favour of the Hindu litigants.