2018 seems to be a bad year for both our apex judicial system and its head, Deepak Misra for they both seem to be in big trouble! After all, it was only in January this year when in an unprecedented move, four Supreme Court judges came out in the open and held a press conference against the Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra accusing him of misusing his office as the Chief Justice and for breach of rules in assignment of cases, often assigning cases of far reaching consequences to “junior” judges. [Note: Although, the apex court in a recent ruling ruled that supreme court judges were all equal and were competent to hear and rule on any matter assigned to them by the Chief Justice of India.]
It was, in fact, the first time for a lot of people when they heard terms and phrases like “bench hunting”, “bench hopping” and “bench avoiding”, which are curious cases wherein people only want those benches to hear petitions who are most likely to rule in their favour. Of course, this is not the first time when such terms have surfaced. Back in 2014, senior advocate Dushyant Dave had barged into the courtroom of the then chief justice R. M. Lodha and had categorically stated that bench hunting was rampant in the apex court too, which had made the CJI initiate an inquiry into the scandalous revelation.
What’s ironical is that it was Justice Dipak Misra himself who talking of “forum shopping” or “bench hunting” had categorically said: “If the same is allowed to prevail, it is likely to usher in anarchy, whim and caprice and in the ultimate eventuate shake the faith in the adjudicating system.” In retrospect, it almost seems like a doomsday prophecy that Justice Misra had made, both for himself and the judiciary. For how was he to know that in barely four years, he himself would be staring at a barrage of allegation, with regards his assignment of certain high-profile cases to certain judges of his choice. But the inevitable has happened! Seven opposition parties led by the Congress has moved for CJI Misra’s impeachment.
Of course, without going into the nitty-gritties of the charges levelled against CJI Dipak Misra for after all we are no one to judge, the timing of the impeachment motion is what makes for a curious case. If the Opposition parties are correct in their statement that they are merely acting on what was said during the press conference by the four supreme court judges against the CJI, the impeachment motion should have moved in the month of January or February itself. But that was not the case!
Thus, it is curious to see that the Opposition parties only swung into action against Dipak Misra when the bench led by the CJI recently rejected the petition seeking an independent investigation into the death of judge BH Loya. That is what makes one smell a rat in the present impeachment motion and question the Opposition’s motives. Is it simply meant to send a warning message to all the judges of the supreme court? A move to intimidate the judiciary? Or is there a bigger agenda at play here with the 2019 Lok Sabha elections just around the corner?
Of course, given how the numbers stand in the Parliament, it is highly unlikely that the Opposition will be able to garner enough strength to see their impeachment motion through. But irrespective of that, this event will remain forever etched in history as a dark day.
