Things weren’t right in SC: Ex-CJI on presser

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 9

Former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, one of the four senior-most judges of the Supreme Court who took an unprecedented step of addressing a press conference on January 12, 2018, has defended his action saying “given the circumstances, it was the right thing to do”.

In his autobiography “Justice for the Judge”, released on Wednesday, Justice Gogoi, however, revealed that he was shocked at the press in full attendance with cameras and OB vans. Describing the press conference as an “infamous and extraordinary event”, he wrote, “January 12, 2018, was a Friday, a miscellaneous day. Immediately after miscellaneous work, around 12 noon, I went to Justice Chelameswar’s residence.

“What I saw there shocked me: the press was in full attendance, several cameras were set up on the back lawn of his residence, which was the venue of the meet. Outside, there were several OB vans. I did not expect this; what I had understood by Justice Chelameswar’s expression ‘let us meet the press’ was a meeting with a few journalists,” Justice Gogoi wrote.

“Anyway, there was no way out now. I had committed to addressing the press and I believe till today that, given the circumstances, it was the right thing to do.

“We strongly felt that things were not right in the Supreme Court and we were proved correct by a slew of remedial steps taken by Justice (Dipak) Misra (the then CJI) himself. Thereafter, he became careful and conscious while exercising the power of allocation of cases,” Justice Gogoi wrote.

After taking over as the CJI, Justice Gogoi wrote, he indicated in the list of subject categories allocated to the different Benches that PILs would thereafter be heard by the first five Benches. “The allocation of a particular Bench to hear a particular PIL out of the five Benches earmarked, however, was still required to be done by the Chief Justice. The improvement was that the allocation could not be random. At least a beginning had been made,” he wrote.