GUWAHATI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday, September 25 cautioned judges against making casual comments that are misogynistic and prejudicial to any community.
ALSO READ: Assam Removes Pay Disparity Among Directorate Of Land Records & Surveys Staff
The court made the observation while hearing a suo motu matter relating to the controversial comments made by Justice V Srishanandan of Karnataka High Court during hearings who had recently referred to an area in Bengaluru , which is apparently Muslim-dominated, as "Pakistan" .
"You can't call any part of the territory of India as "Pakistan. It is fundamentally contrary to the territorial integrity of the nation", Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud orally said, according to a Live Law report..
A 5-judge bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justice Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, Surya Kant and Hrishikesh Roy was hearing the suo motu matter.
The clippings of the video showing the Karnataka High Court judge making certain comments have gone viral.
While in one video, he was seen referring to an area in Bengaluru as "Pakistan," in another, he was seen making objectionable remarks to a woman advocate in a matrimonial dispute.
The court, however, decided not to pursue the matter further in the light of the regret expressed by the Judge in the open court after the Supreme Court's intervention over the viral video clips. At the same time, the Court made several significant observations on the need for the judges to express restraint, particularly in the age of electronic media where there is wide reportage of the court proceedings.
"Casual observations may well reflect a certain degree of individual bias particularly when they are likely to be perceived as being directed against a particular gender or community. Courts therefore have to be careful not to make comments in the course of judicial proceedings which may be construed as being misogynistic or prejudicial to any segment of our society," the bench observed in the order.
The court noted from the report of the Registrar General of the Karnataka High Court that the observations made by Justice Srishananda were unrelated to the subject matter.
Saying that such comments were best eschewed, the court recorded its disapproval of the comments made by the judge against a gender and a community.
"The perception of justice to every segment of society is as important as the rendition of justice as an objective fact. Since the judge of the Karnataka High Court is not a party to the proceedings, we desist from making any further observations, saving except to express our serious concern about both the reference to gender and to a segment of the community. Such observations are liable to be construed in a negative light, thereby impacting not only the court of the judge who expressed that but also the wider judicial system. While we are inclined to close the proceedings, we hope and expect that the demands which have been placed on all stakeholders in the judicial system in the electronic age would elicit approrpiate modulation of behaviour both on the part of the bench as well as the bar," the bench observed.
It was last week that two video clips of Justice Vedavyasachar Srishananda of the High Court surfaced on social media, in which he was seen making objectionable remarks.
Following that, on September 20, the Supreme Court took suo motu cognizance of the remarks and sought a report from the Registrar General of Karnataka High Court.