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Senior Advocates Plea to SC to Lodge FIR against Allahabad HC Judge

Senior Advocates Plea to SC to Lodge FIR against Allahabad HC Judge

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NEW DELHI, Jan 17: Senior advocates on Friday wrote to the Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna to direct the Central Bureau of Investigation to lodge a First Information Report (FIR) against the Allahabad High Court judge Shekhar Kumar Yadav after taking suo motu notice of communal comments reported to have been made by him during a speech at an event organised by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad on December 8.

The petition, addressed to the Chief Justice through the Secretary General of the Supreme Court with copies to other senior judges, including Justices B.R. Gavai, Surya Kant, Hrishikesh Roy and A.S. Oka, was written by senior advocates, including Indira Jaising, Aspi Chinoy, Navroz Seervai, Anand Grover, Chander Uday Singh, Jaideep Gupta, Mohan V. Katarki, Shoeb Alam, R. Vaigai, Mihir Desai and Jayant Bhushan.

They wrote that Justice Yadav’s comments “drew a stark and inflammatory distinction” between two religious communities. It was a blatantly divisive rhetoric disregarding judicial impartiality. The judge had openly aligned himself with one religious community while painting the other in a deeply derogatory light, they observed.

“Justice Yadav’s speech has imprints of multiple offences described under Sections 196 and 302 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). The speech not only wounds the religious feelings of Muslims, as defined under Section 302 of the Sanhita, but it also has the undertones of promoting enmity (Section 196) between different groups on grounds of religion,” the letter, circulated via email, said.

The letter said the Supreme Court had dealt with the issue of initiating criminal proceedings against sitting judges after consulting the Chief Justice of India. The senior advocates referred to a 1991 reported judgment of the apex court in the K. Veeraswami case in which it had held that “no criminal case shall be registered under Section 154, Cr. P. C. against a judge of the High Court, Chief Justice of the High Court or judge of the Supreme Court unless the Chief Justice of India is consulted in the matter. Due regard must be given by the government to the opinion expressed by the Chief Justice.”

“It shall be necessary and appropriate that the question of sanction be guided by and in accordance with the advice of the Chief Justice of India,” the Veeraswami judgment has held. The judgment had noted that the government must consult with other judges of the Supreme Court if the allegations of criminal misconduct were against the Chief Justice of India.

Justice Yadav, who had earlier met with the Supreme Court collegium judges, has rejected the allegations, saying his comments were interpreted out of context.

(Manas Dasgupta)

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