’External influence’ on Supreme Court: CJI Gogoi slams PIL

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, Dec 06, 2018 : Expressing displeasure at a PIL that wants an inquiry into alleged "external influences" over his predecessor, Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi Thursday said that credibility of the institution is best maintained by those who man it and not by the newspaper reports.

 

A lawyer, associated with the fresh PIL, had showed up before the CJI to press for early hearing of the matter. He said the petition cites media reports while buttressing for a probe into a statement purportedly made by Justice Kurian Joseph days after his retirement last week.

"So you file such a PIL and you want us to list it on an urgent basis. What is this? You should do your job and we should do ours. That’s it," retorted Justice Gogoi.

When the lawyer said his attempt was to protect credibility of the judiciary, the CJI said that it is not for him to feel unnecessarily concerned.

"Credibility of institution is maintained by people who manage it. It is not affected by newspaper reports but by the people at the helm," said Justice Gogoi.

Declining to give an urgent hearing to the PIL, the judge reiterated: "We will do our job and everyone else should do theirs."

Justice Joseph retired last week. Some media reports reported the former Supreme Court judge as saying that previous CJI Dipak Misra appeared to be under some "external influences" and that he was perhaps being "remote-controlled".

Justice Joseph was one among the four judges who had conducted the unprecedented press conference in January this year, showing lack of confidence in administration of the top court by then CJI Misra.

Justice Gogoi, the incumbent chief, had also participated in this media briefing wherein he had said that the judges wanted to "discharge the debt of the nation" by speaking out.