NEW DELHI: A group of 18 retired judges -- eight from Supreme Court and 11 from various State High Courts -- have shot off a letter to the Union Home Minister Amit Shah for "misinterpreting" the judgment of the Supreme Court in the Salwa Judum case.
They emphasised on the importance of according and preserving Institutional dignity.
"A Judge in his tenure decides innumerable cases and does so on the anvil of legal issues and purely by law so to suggest that in this case the Judge in question has done so on personal ideology is undermining the institutional integrity. Every citizen has a right to criticize a judgement but to do so on personal reasons will erode the belief of the public in the concerned institutions," they said.
Shah had allegedly accused Justice B Sudershan Reddy, a former Judge of the Supreme Court, of “supporting” Maoism.
Reddy is joint opposition nominee for the post of Vice President.
Shah had claimed that Left Wing Extremism would have ended by 2020 in the absence of the Salwa Judum judgement.
In reaction, the former judges said, "The statement of the Union Home Minister Amit Shah publicly misinterpreting the judgment of the Supreme Court in the Salva Judum case is unfortunate. The judgment nowhere supports, either expressly or by compelling implication of its text, Naxalism or its ideology."
Their statement further stated that while the campaign for the office of the Vice President of India may well be ideological, it can be conducted civilly and with dignity. Criticizing the ideology of the either candidate should be eschewed.
"Prejudicial misinterpretation of a judgement of the Supreme Court by a high political functionary is likely to have a chilling effect on the judges of the Supreme Court shaking the independence of the judiciary. Out of respect for the office of the Vice President of India, it would be wise to refrain from name calling," the letter further said.
The eight Supreme Court judges (former) who wrote to the HM are: Justices Kurien Joseph, Madan B Lokur and J Chelameswar, A K Patnaik, Abhay S. Oka, Gopala Gowda and Vikramjit Sen.
The former Chief Justices of High Courts, who were also part of this letter written process were: Justices Govind Mathur, S. Muralidhar and Sanjib Bannerjee. The former Judges of High Courts, who was part of this were: Justices Anjana Prakash, C. Praveen Kumar, A. Gopala Reddy, G Raghuram, K. Kannan, K. Chandru B Chandrakumar, Kailash Gambhir and Mohan Gopal.
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