"Need to Safeguard the Judiciary from unwarranted Pressure": Retired judges write to CJI

Guwahati, April 15: A group of 21 retired judges from the Supreme Court and High Courts penned a letter to the Chief Justice of India, expressing apprehension over increasing efforts to undermine the judiciary through targeted pressure, distortion of facts and public defamation.

The judges cautioned against politically motivated attacks aimed at eroding public trust in the judicial system without specifying any particular incidents.

As per reports, this comes amidst ongoing disputes between the ruling BJP and opposition parties concerning legal actions against certain political figures in corruption cases.

The retired justices, including Deepak Verma, Krishna Murari, Dinesh Maheshwari and M R Shah, condemned such attacks as detrimental to the integrity of the courts and judges, emphasising the need to safeguard judicial independence from unwarranted pressures.

“Such actions not only disrespect the sanctity of our judiciary but also pose a direct challenge to the principles of fairness and impartiality that judges, as guardians of the law, have sworn to uphold,” the judges said in the letter titled “Need to safeguard judiciary from unwarranted pressures”.

“This behaviour, we observe, is particularly pronounced in the cases and causes of social, economic and political significance, including the cases involving certain individuals, wherein the lines between advocacy and manoeuvring are blurred to the detriment of judicial independence,” they added in the letter.

The letter writers flagged their concern about the tactics of misinformation and the orchestration of public sentiment against the judiciary.

"The practice of selectively praising judicial decisions that align with one's views while vehemently criticising those that do not, undermines the very essence of judicial review and the rule of law," they said.

This letter comes weeks after a group of 600 lawyers, including senior advocate Harish Salve and Bar Council of India chairperson Manan Kumar Mishra wrote a letter to the Chief Justice of India, alleging that a "vested interest group" is trying to pressure the judiciary and defame courts "on the basis of frivolous logic and stale political agendas".