A lawyer's poser to Justice Kurian Joseph

I take the liberty of posting the views of an advocate concerned about delivery of justice:

Dear Hon’ble Justice Kurian Joseph,

Unlike many former judges of the supreme court, even the distinguished ones, you shot into limelight soon after you retired. Not for reasons that did you proud.

You laid down your office a week ago, on the 29^th November, and four days later NDTV aired your interview. Sorry, you didn’t shine in the interview – mainly because you spat on the institution you served by attacking, without rhyme or reason or proof, the man who headed it as Chief Justice of India.  

You didn't tell the interviewer anything significant about your contribution as a judge of the supreme court for over five and a half years. Nor about any great judge of earlier times, in India, UK or the USA, who might have inspired you. Nor about improving the administration of justice in the lower judiciary.  All this may be ignored, if the purpose of your interview was merely to mark your retirement.  But not your criticism of a brother judge of the supreme court - Chief justice of India Dipak Misra - against whom you and three other companion judges held a press conference in Delhi last January.  It makes no difference that chief justice Misra had also retired when you faulted him on television.

Some may have presumed that a bit of decorum of a judge in office prevented you in January from revealing more about chief justice Dipak Misra though you possibly had details to disclose. But even after retiring, all you could say against the chief justice are pompous nothings, defamatory and perhaps contemptuous too.  This is the plain truth. May I please explain?

You spoke these words when talking to the television channel, to say what you saw wrong in chief justice Dipak Misra and why four sitting judges of the supreme court, including you, gathered against him and met pressmen in January this year: “The existence of judiciary should be independent. If it is not independent and if it is dependent, the independence of the judiciary which is the hall mark of Indian judiciary is gone. It is shaken……So we found that there has been external influences on the Chief Justice of India, and he has not been making independent decisions …. We discussed. We brought it to the notice of the Chief Justice of India that things are not going in the right direction. ‘You should correct your ways.’  We met him.  We brought to his notice in writing.  Then finally, without finding any result, as I used to say, the barking dog had to bite… We brought it to the notice of the whole nation.”

Before you were interviewed for television, on the same day Press Trust of India quoted you: “The then CJI was remote-controlled by an external source. There was some influence of some external source that was impacting the administration of justice.” When asked to specify the basis of your assertion, you told PTI it was the perception among you and three other judges who figured in the January press conference - and some unnamed judges as well. That’s all.  You told other journalists also about your 'perception' as the basis of your claim. Today’s edition of The Hindu reports that when questioned on proof to substantiate your ‘external influence’ theory you said, “It was a perception. There was a perception in the minds of not only the four of us but among several judges and the media.”  

       I am still searching for maturity and credibility in your statements.  For instance, you didn't reveal how you found that, apart from the four of you, several other judges too had an identical perception of an external influence driving chief justice Dipka Misra. Did those other judges tell you or was it your perception that they had the same perception like yours? Can you guess what an image of yourself you create in the minds of others, Hon’ble Justice Joseph? Litigants will hope you did not decide cases all through as a judge on the basis of  similar perceptions.

Do you realise what a damning criticism you uttered against India's head of the judiciary, with whom you served?  You know that independence is an essential quality of a judge in whom people can trust. If you fault Justice Dipak Misra for lacking in that trait, you portray him as a most unfit judge, even at district level. If you still believe you spoke with responsibility when decrying him, I need to quote more from your interviews to the press and to television and ask you a few things, so you become clearer to those watching you.

The television interviewer queried you on your view that chief justice Dipak Misra was “remote-controlled” and asked, “Who was holding the remote control?  Was it the influence of the government or was it political influence?”  Having been a supreme court judge, you gave this stunning reply to back up your charge: “I … we have no idea as to who was the person behind.  But we were quite sure that the Chief Justice of India was not taking decisions independently… I am not able to pinpoint as to who was influencing him.  But we were much sure he was under some influence.” Well, when you spoke these words you managed not to laugh. What more can anyone say, Hon’ble Justice Joseph?  

                                             

Did your January press conference curtail the ‘external influence’ emanating from an unknown source and affecting Justice Misra? You seemed to believe so when you told PTI recently that the presser “had an impact and things started changing for good during the remaining part of Justice Misra’s tenure as CJI.” So, you say that chief justice Misra was reforming himself and freeing himself from that ‘external influence’ as a result of your press meet in January. But this cause-and-effect story is hard to believe. 

If you cannot pinpoint that ‘external influence’ now, surely you didn't do it while sitting face to face with chief justice Misra in his chamber in the supreme court. By simple logic, three other judges who were with you at the January press meet could not also identify that 'external influence' up till now, since the four of you would have shared any such knowledge among you if even one of you gauged it. Then how did chief justice Misra banish that 'external influence' - when you did not know what it was or where it came from and so the chief justice did not have to fear you exposing him? Or, are you saying that after you and three other judges met pressmen last January the chief justice turned a new leaf on his own and got himself out of that 'external influence?' If indeed the chief justice did so, what kind of a real influence was that ghostly force when its victim could shake it off instantly?  You were a judge, that too of the supreme court of India. Do you sound convincing to yourself, leave alone others? 

      I was also puzzled by  some  thoughts you  expressed to the same interviewer at different stages of a sitting and to different interviewers, and I just couldn’t put two and two together. You told NDTV early on that you didn’t know if the government was the ‘external influence’. Towards the end of your dialogue, when the interviewer asked you, “Will future chief justices be not remote-controlled?” you quickly replied, “Governments will always try to somehow influence the chief justice because they are not happy at all …..”Did you, per chance, let the cat out of the bag? And then, in The Hindu interview of today, you praised both the present Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, who was with you at the January press conference, and prime minister Narendra Modi for the good rapport between them.

      If  anyone understood or misunderstood you as hinting that the former Chief Justice of India was under the influence of the present government, but that the same government maintains smooth honourable relations with the present Chief Justice of India, the listener or viewer could be left utterly confused. When I see these conflicting pictures coming from you, am I at fault sir?

       When you speak to the public, the public too will speak to you as I do. Also, you fairly told the television interviewer, “People have a right to raise questions”.  So, you won’t surely mistake the questions I have posed here. Your answers could help everyone understand you better.

     Finally, let me ask you.  The Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, defines ‘criminal contempt’ to include any act which (i) scandalises or lowers the authority of any court, or tends to do so; or (ii) interferes with or obstructs the administration of justice in any other manner, or tends to do so. Assume you were functioning as the Chief Justice of India, and that I met you and accused you of being remote-controlled by some external influence which I felt affected the administration of justice. Assume further I admitted that I could not pinpoint or prove who was influencing you and I still demanded that you correct your ways. Then would you not have hauled me up for criminal contempt, and would I not be close to being convicted? And if I laid the same charge against you publicly after you retired as such chief justice, what would you or anyone sensible think of me? Will you please enlighten me, Hon’ble Justice Joseph?

            Warm regards.

                                                                                                        
            R. Veera Raghavan