New Delhi: The All India Lawyers Union (AILU) today wrote to the President of India and the Chief Justice of India, urging them to intervene to take necessary remedial action and initiate proceedings against Justice Shekhar Yadav, a sitting judge of Allahabad High Court.
The letter signed by Bikas Ranjan Bhattacharya, a Rajya Sabha member of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and president of All India Lawyers Union and AILU general secretary P.V. Surendranath, accused Justice Yadav of delivering a “communal speech” from the platform of Vishwa Hindu Parishad, which was “against the Constitution, and its ethos and was a direct affront to its basic structure-secularism and independence of the judiciary”.
“It tantamounts to sabotaging of independence of the judiciary from within,” the letter claimed.
According to Bhattacharya and Surendranath, both senior lawyers, the tone and tenure of the widely circulated speech of Justice Yadav amounted to hate speech against the Muslim minority in the name of majoritarian Hindu religion. “Democracy is not majoritarianism or religious majoritarianism,” the letter stated and claimed that Justice Yadav’s “imputations, allegations and expressions against the Muslim minority are of vicious, vitriolic and venomous nature; most unbecoming of a sitting judge of a Constitutional court- violation of Constitutional oath of office of a judge of the High court”.
Alleging that Justice Yadav’s expression and concept of democracy was nothing less than of “Hindutva Rashtra”, the All India Lawyers Union stated that this incident once again illustrated and demonstrated the “weakness of the collegium system in the matter of selection and appointment of judges of the Constitutional courts – High courts and the Supreme Court, and to deal with their misdemeanours; not capable of protecting the independence of the judiciary; and the need for an independent Constitutional mechanism for selection and appointment of judges of constitutional courts without conceding dominance of the executive or judiciary and giving representation to all stakeholders in that independent constitutional autonomous institution”.
“AILU expresses strong disagreement and protest against the aforesaid speech made by Justice Sekhar Yadav and earnestly hopes that the Hon’ble President of India, Honourable Chief Justice of India and the Supreme Court of India would intervene and take necessary remedial action and initiate proceedings against Justice Shekhar Yadav,” the letter stated.
– global bihari bureau
