In December last year, Justice Mishra had threatened senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan with contempt proceedings during the course of a hearing.

“You are making a mockery of the justice delivery system! We are hearing patiently. And You are commenting on every query? Retorting on every query? If you make one more retort and I will take contempt against you and make sure it is seen through!…Now If you have any new points, you may only make them!” Justice Mishra told the senior advocate, while hearing arguments relating to the Indore Development Authority case.

Gopal Sankaranarayanan happened to be one of the lawyers who had demanded Justice Mishra’s recusal from the case as the judge having earlier rendered the Indore Development Authority decision which is under reconsideration before a five-judge Constitutional bench headed by the same judge. The rebuke led to Sankaranarayanan excusing himself and leaving the courtroom.

The incident even provoked Supreme Court Advocates on Record Association to pass a resolution, expressing deep concern. The resolution pointed out that several members of the bar have repeatedly been raising such grievance about ‘unwarranted treatment and passing personal remarks by Hon’ble Justice Arun Mishra’.

While requesting Justice Mishra to be ‘a little more patient in dealing with lawyers, the resolution pointed out that the duty to maintain dignity and decorum of the court is cast upon both lawyers and judges.

In July last year, Justice Mishra, who headed the bench hearing the violation of coastal regulation by the Maradu apartment complex in Ernakulam, had similarly threatened the lawyers representing the flat owners, who wanted demolition of the apartment towers stayed. Justice Mishra’s bench ordered the demolition of the towers and gave a month’s time for the operation.

Justice Mishra got provoked by the fact that the residents of illegal flats approached the vacation bench led by Justice Indira Banerjee to get a stay of the demolition on the plea that Justice Mishra’s bench passed the demolition order without hearing them. Justice Mishra saw this as a bid to secure a stay ‘on the sly’ and described it as ‘absolute fraud’ on the court.

“Should we draw contempt against you? Ethics have gone to the dogs... What is happening in this court? Three to four senior counsel are part of this fraud. You should have declined to appear. Is money everything for you?” Justice Mishra lashed out at the lawyers.

Justice Mishra’s bench that heard the suo moto case against Prashant Bhushan for his tweets on Chief Justice S A Bobde had objected to the activist lawyer’s observations for the ‘impression’ the tweets tends to give an ordinary citizen that “when the historians in future look back, the impression they will get is, that in the last six years the democracy has been destroyed in India without even a formal emergency and that the Supreme Court had a particular role in the said destruction and the last four Chief Justices of India had more particular role in the said destruction.

But this raises the question whether Justice Mishra himself took proper care to see what impressions the ordinary citizens would have carried about his outbursts against lawyers.

“An attempt to shake the very foundation of constitutional democracy has to be dealt with an iron hand. The tweet has the effect of destabilising the very foundation of this important pillar of the Indian democracy. The tweet clearly tends to give an impression, that the Supreme Court, which is a highest constitutional court in the country, has in the last six years played a vital role in destruction of the Indian democracy. There is no manner of doubt, that the tweet tends to shake the public confidence in the institution of judiciary.”

Public confidence on the institution of judiciary depends on a number of factors, including the quality of pronouncements by the judges, the court’s response to issues that concern the public. The court cannot insulate itself from whatever is happening around it by taking the high moral ground and then doing things that may raise doubts in the minds of the public. (IPA Service)