Judges are condemned, their families are humiliated and they can't even speak. You are the leader of the bar. We expect you to be impartial. You may have love & affection for anyone but we want you to be fair. Don't take sides.
- Hon’ble Justice Arun Mishra (as quoted by Utkarsh Anand on his twitter feed: shorturl.at/kqwHS)
On 14/08/2020, the Supreme Court of India passed a judgment whereby Prashant Bhushan – a noted lawyer and well-known activist found guilty of committed criminal contempt. The action has its roots in two tweets posted by Prashant Bhushan whereby he made certain imputations on functioning (or non-functioning) of the judiciary. It is his opinion that democracy failed in/by the Supreme Court.
There are ample opinions floated on Social Media questioning whether the Supreme Court is right in taking cognizance or Supreme Court needs to be thick-skinned and avoid such ill-founded and outrageous opinion of some ultra-left fringe element. What is astonished to me is how tweets made on a platform like Twitter which has the limited reach to common man gives reason to the Supreme Court to get teased.
My reading of Supreme Court judges rather judges of all higher court is, they in fact, sit in an ivory tower where the reality is blurred by WhatsApp forwards and Twitter. The rise of live court reporting thrilled the judges who used to get the gossip from second-hand sources - such as, their confidante lawyers or relatives who are practising in the Court. Now, this live-reporting and gossip-exchange provide direct access of information to judges. This makes them believe whatever is floated in Social media is the true and correct perception of the people of India.
Though I have no empirical data to back my belief, I believe that there is hardly 05% of Indian who has access to Twitter. And out of this 5%, most of them are busy following more mundane topics than Court reporting and rule of law. The limited interaction with some of my relatives, friends and acquaintances, revealed that most of are unaware of the tweets of Prashant Bhushan and some of them do not even know who is Prashant Bhushan!
I, therefore, firmly believe that the Supreme Court ought not to have amused through two tweets. In fact, we as a society, need to know the difference between real-world and social media version of the real world.
Rampant Corruption is a staple topic of discussion amongst Indians. Most of the Indians whether they have the first-hand experience of corruption or not, gets high in discussing corruption-ridden authority. It is my belief that they are not even serious about their charges of corruption as they still have considerable faith in the judiciary. I know there are various administrative short-comings of the judiciary, still, it ignites hope in citizens.
What was tweeted by Prashant Bhushan is very reasonable if we consider the superficial discussion of the judiciary on Pan Shop or Chai-shop. Everyone has their share of indulging in this national pastime called ‘non-committal – agent of change’.
The suggestion of Rajiv Dhavan that your Lordships may say that the Bar should be a little restrained in their criticism of the court and should be sure about facts. That in my opinion is what Your Lordships should say, is the perfect to give ceremonious closure of the controversy.
Opinionated I:
Humans are inherently opposed to authority. Though to develop peaceful society, they make peace with authority. But in this process, they develop passive contempt for the authority. Many of them choose to tease the authority. Most of the time authority remain unamused. Sometimes they want to teach the miscreant/rebel a lesson. Most of the time people stand with rebel/miscreant. Not because they endorse the view of miscreant but Due to inherent passive contempt for authority. The authority should learn to ignore such a rebel.
-MV Govind
