Chairman of the Bar Council of India (BCI), Manan Kumar Mishra, has penned a letter to Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud, expressing apprehensions about a recent open letter from a senior lawyer to the CJI concerning the listing of sensitive cases pending before the Supreme Court. Mishra asserts that the letter amounts to an attempt to exert “undue influence” with the aim of securing “favourable” decisions.
On December 6, senior advocate Dushyant Dave wrote an open letter to the CJI, expressing distress over “certain happenings” related to the listing and reallocation of cases to other benches of the apex court, and urging immediate corrective measures. Without explicitly mentioning Dave, the BCI chairman contends that efforts made through such letters unequivocally constitute contemptuous conduct and a scheme designed to advance ulterior motives. Mishra alleges that the underlying purpose of such letters is to exert pressure on the judiciary to obtain “favourable decisions for their influential clients and interests.” He emphasises that such letters have become a recurring feature, almost to the point of staleness, and must, therefore, be summarily rejected by the judiciary. Mishra implores the CJI to eradicate the “nuisance” propagated by these letters and establish a lasting precedent against such attempts.
A day prior to Dave’s letter, Supreme Court judge Sanjay Kishan Kaul expressed surprise when certain lawyers, including Prashant Bhushan, alleged a sudden deletion from court number two’s cause list pertaining to pleas related to the Centre’s alleged delay in acting on the collegium’s recommendations on the elevation and transfer of high court judges.
In his letter to the CJI, Dave, a former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), conveyed deep anguish over certain incidents related to the listing of cases by the apex court registry.