Drawing the curtains on the suo motu contempt of court proceedings, the Chief Justice said the entire judicial system that fosters on the faith of the public at large should be the concern of everyone. He said every citizen needs to learn, even if curriculum does not prescribe it, the need for civility, humility, courteousness and righteous expression.
[9/18, 16:16] Sekarreporter 1: [9/18, 16:16] Sekarreporter 1: https://twitter.com/sekarreporter1/status/1306907219296882688?s=08
[9/18, 16:16] Sekarreporter 1: [9/18, 16:14] Sekarreporter 1: Don’t cross borders while criticising judiciary, Madras HC CJ advises individuals
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[9/18, 16:17] Sekarreporter 1: TAMIL NADU
Don’t cross borders while criticising judiciary, Madras HC CJ advises individuals
Madras High Court in Chennai. File
Madras High Court in Chennai. File | Photo Credit: V. Ganesan
Mohamed Imranullah S.
CHENNAI 18 SEPTEMBER 2020 16:03 IST
UPDATED: 18 SEPTEMBER 2020 16:03 IST
Also says a constitutional court cannot use a sledgehammer to avoid every other criticism.
Individuals should carefully frame their minds and express themselves without crossing the border of just and fair criticism. Likewise, it is not the job of a constitutional court to use a sledgehammer for avoiding something which can be perceived to be not capable of even being propped up as contempt, much less debated to the level of criminal contempt, the Madras High Court has said.
Chief Justice Amreshwar Pratap Sahi and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy made the observations after accepting the opinion of Advocate General Vijay Narayan that there was no necessity to initiate criminal contempt proceedings against actor Suriya. Justice S.M. Subramaniam of the High Court had written to the Chief Justice on Sunday taking exception to the actor’s statement against judiciary.
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The actor, involved in educating poor students through his Agaram Foundation, was annoyed over the Supreme Court having refused to exempt students from appearing for National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for medical admissions. He said the court functioning virtually “fearing threat to life” was expecting students alone to write examinations without any fear of COVID-19.
After doling out impressive statistics on number of cases filed and disposed by the courts in the State during the pandemic, Chief Justice Sahi said: “We find that the utterances by the cine actor may have been absolutely unnecessary or even unwarranted, for being ignorant of the manner in which the entire judiciary of this State has served the interest of its citizens during this pandemic.”
“Any such statement could have been avoided in a much more sober way, instead of an accusing tone which, though trivial in nature, has raised a storm in a tea cup. A person in public life enjoys a position because of the responsibility with which he conducts himself and not by making other human activities look small for perceptibly no valid reason.”
“We would not say anything further as we find that the NEET examinations and the dispute around it was not even a subject matter of the courts in the State of Tamil Nadu.” After Justice Subramaniam’s letter, six former High Court judges led by K. Chandru wrote to the Chief Justice asking him not to initiate contempt proceedings. They said the actor was a self-righteous person and a philanthropist.
A section of lawyers too wrote letters to the Chief Justice both for and against initiation of contempt against him. The Chief Justice, on the administrative side, referred the issue to the Advocate General who declined consent to initiate contempt proceedings. However, since no such consent was required to initiate suo motu contempt, the judges went on to pass judicial orders on the issue.
“A self-righteous person should himself be humble enough to acknowledge the contribution of others… Before a scoff or a mocking comment is made, it should also be weighed as to whether it is fair criticism or not,” the first Division Bench said and appreciated a fairly balanced article penned by senior counsel Sriram Panchu and published in the The Hindu on Friday.
Pointing out that judges, court staff and other stakeholders in the State were themselves on trial during the pandemic and yet done their best to the capacity of the institution, the Chief Justice said that reliability of sources of information should always be observed when people occupying a public space speak on issues that deserve to be based on ground realities.
Otherwise, any statement bereft of foundational facts might be fraught with a danger of spreading prejudices and adding to the ignorance of the public at large.
“Speculations and narratives with embellishments may be a form of advertisement but it should not be an off the cuff depiction. This unnecessarily results in relentless interrogation on platforms with accusations of over-sensitiveness, even though an opinion expressed genuinely might have a grain of truth in it,” he added.
Chief Justice Sahi went on to state that there could be hair splitting opinions to find out the difference between an insult, unfair criticism, uninformed opinion, casual drawing room talk, heer party gossip or constructive dissent, informed criticism and a healthy open debate as against mere accusations and empty words.
“The freedom of speech to call a spade a spade and to exercise free unrestrained speech are two different dimensions. The right to freedom of speech that includes fair criticism is guaranteed under the Constitution but the same Constitution also protects and insulates judicial governance from insidious and derogatory comments,” he said.
Drawing the curtains on the suo motu contempt of court proceedings, the Chief Justice said the entire judicial system that fosters on the faith of the public at large should be the concern of everyone. He said every citizen needs to learn, even if curriculum does not prescribe it, the need for civility, humility, courteousness and righteous expression.
