Madras High Court refuses to entertain PIL seeking to restrain retired judges from issuing public letters, appeals, or statements
First Division Bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice Sunder Mohan said, no such prohibitory orders, as sought by the PIL petitioner R. Varaaki of Chennai, could be passed against retired judges and said, the sitting judges would not be influenced with such appeals by retired judges. 'This is all a publicity interest litigation. The matter will be looked into... you need not poke your nose into this,' the Chief Justice told the petitioner's counsel G.S. Mani.
In his affidavit, the petitioner had referred to the wide circulation of a recent written appeal, supposedly made by eight retired judges, led by K. Chandru, objecting to Justice G.R. Swaminathan having questioned Madurai-based advocate S. Vanchinathan regarding allegations of caste bias levelled by him against the judge.
The petitioner said that K.K. Sasidharan, one of those eight retired judges whose names had been mentioned in the appeal, had immediately issued a rebuttal, clarifying that he was neither consulted regarding the issuance of such an appeal nor had he accorded his consent to issue the written appeal in his name.
'This dissociation raises serious doubts about the authenticity and collective approval behind the letter,' the petitioner said and claimed that the appeal not having been kept confidential and instead made viral on social media created an apprehension of a coordinated effort to influence ongoing judicial proceedings.
Further, alleging that the appeal appeared to have been designed to delegitimise judicial authority, the litigant said: 'Public statements by leaders such as K. Veeramani of Dravidar Kazhagam and M.H. Jawahirullah of Manithaneya Makkal Katchi, questioning the impartiality of sitting judges, compounded the problem and deepened the erosion of institutional confidence.'
Impressing upon the need to insulate the judiciary from all forms of external influence, including that from retired judges, the petitioner said, the High Court could also constitute a fact-finding committee headed by a retired Supreme Court judge to inquire into the origin and circulation of the written appeal by the retired judges.
The petitioner's counsel G.S. Mani contended that the written appeal, addressed to Justice Swaminathan and his benchmate Justice K. Rajasekar, had been 'deliberately' circulated on social media.
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