By Muslim Mirror Staff
After the Supreme Court was targeted by Hindu nationalist forces for its observations against Nupur Sharma’s remarks on Prophet Muhammad, a group of retired judges, bureaucrats and armed forces officers have written an open letter criticising the top court’s stance.
The group consisting of 15 retired judges of various high courts, 77 retired bureaucrats and 25 retired armed forces officers alleged that the comments made by the two judges — Justices Surya Kant and Justice J.B. Pardiwala — are unfortunate and unprecedented, and the top court surpassed the ‘Laxman Rekha’ and called for urgent rectification steps.
The statement said: “In the annals of judiciary, the unfortunate comments have no parallel and are an indelible scar on the justice system of the largest democracy. Urgent rectification steps are called for as these have potentially serious consequences on democratic values and security of the country.”
It may be noted that right-wing forces are up in arms in connection with the Supreme Court’s criticism of Nupur Sharma. They have been running defamatory hashtags against the top court on social media such as #सुप्रिमकोठा [Supreme brothel] and #SupremeCourtIsCompromised.
Amid such an environment, former judges, bureaucrats and armed forces officers have written an open letter expressing their discomfort over the Supreme Court’s observation.
“The observations also graduate to the most unjustifiable degree that this was only to fan an agenda… In the annals of judiciary, the unfortunate comments have no parallel and are an indelible scar on the justice system of the largest democracy,” said the three-page open statement. They said Sharma was de facto denied access to the judiciary and in the process, there was an outrage on the Preamble, spirit and essence of the Constitution.
They said through such observation, perceptionally there is virtual exoneration of the dastardliest beheading at Udaipur in broad daylight.
Sharma had moved the top court seeking clubbing of FIRs, registered in various parts of the country, into one FIR at Delhi in the matter connected with her remarks against the Prophet Muhammed. On July 1, the apex court slammed Sharma for her controversial remarks.
The signatories of the aforementioned letter include former chief justice of the Bombay High Court Kshitij Vyas, former Gujarat High Court judge S.M. Soni, former Delhi High Court judge S.N. Dhingra, former chief justice (acting) Gauhati High Court K. Sreedhar Rao, former Rajasthan High Court judges R.S. Rathore and Prashant Agarwal.
The other signatories include: former IAS officers R.S. Gopalan and S. Krishna Kumar, former DGPs S.P. Vaid and B.L. Vohra, ambassador (retired) Niranjan Desai, Lt Gen V.K. Chaturvedi (retired) and Air Marshall (retired) S.P. Singh. The coordinators are Justice P.N. Ravindran, former judge of Kerala High Court, and Anand Bose, former chief secretary, Kerala.
(With inputs from IANS)
I admire MM for highlighting this bit of news.
Ofcourse you do, Hindu goo bhakt… because you only believe what suits your RSS bhangi agenda.
I do agree. ! The comments were gratuitous and intemperate. The Judge should be impeached and kicked out for inciting violence and hatred. He shall be, essentially, responsible if some untoward incident happens. Judiciary is required to build the trust and confidence of the citizens, that has sagged in the recent times.