Killing the Institution: SC Judge on Lawyers Questioning Top Court

“Lawyers will survive only if this institution survives”, Justice Mishra told the lawyers.

Supreme Court judge Arun Mishra lashed out at lawyers maligning the apex court in public.

(Photo: Reuters)

Justice Arun Mishra on Wednesday, 9 May, expressed his disapproval of lawyers who he said were lately targeting and questioning Supreme Court judges, both within and outside the court. Their actions, he said in a angry outburst, would ultimately lead to the “killing of the institution”.

You are killing this institution every day. Lawyers will survive only if this institution survives.

Justice Arun Mishra 

According to a Hindustan Times report, Justice Mishra’s comments came while he was part of a Supreme Court bench hearing a plea by the Medical Council of India against a Kerala government ordinance that had allowed for some medical admissions despite a Supreme Court order setting them aside.

The judge lashed out at the lawyers when they started arguing simultaneously and raised their voices at the bench of judges, reported PTI.

He also expressed his distaste at lawyers appearing on television channels for debates, saying, “They discuss court proceedings on TV. We are abused like anything”.

Justice Mishra, who has often joked that he was a “junior judge”, was mired in controversy earlier this year in January when four senior judges spoke to the press about sensitive cases being allotted to junior judges by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra.

He was initially heading a bench that heard the petition which sought an inquiry into Justice BH Loya’s death, but it was withdrawn from the bench and transferred to another that ultimately ruled out foul play.

At the press conference, when asked whether the judges had decided to speak out because of the allocation of the Loya case, one of the judges had answered in the affirmative. Soon after the unprecedented press conference, Mishra had reportedly broken down at an informal gathering of judges, saying that he had been humiliated by his senior colleagues.

Senior advocate and president of the Supreme Court Bar Association Vikas Singh, who was also present, agreed with Justice Mishra, saying that maligning the Supreme Court was not in the interest of the country.

(With inputs from Hindustan Times)

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