CJI bench: Criticism of apex court judgments no affront to judiciary

NEW DELHI: PIL petitioner Pankaj Pushkar, who was associated with NCERT in preparing textbooks, informed a bench of CJI Surya Kant, Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi that while the court had ordered redaction of the controversial reference to corruption in judiciary, parts in other books that show judiciary in poor light continue to be taught.

He produced an NCERT textbook that contained the paragraph: "However, there are also court judgments that people believe work against the best interests of the common person. For example, activists who work on issues concerning the right to shelter and housing for the poor believe that the recent judgments on evictions are a far cry from earlier judgments."




While recent judgments tend to view the slum dweller as an encroacher in the city, earlier judgments (like the 1985 Olga Tellis vs Bombay Municipal Corporation) had tried to protect the livelihoods of slum dwellers,” the paragraph in NCERT textbook read.

Reading aloud the paragraph, the CJI-led bench said there is nothing objectionable about this. “This is a viewpoint on the judgment. People have a right to criticise the judgments of the courts.

Criticism of judgment does not stand on the same footing as the earlier case (textbook reference to corruption in judiciary)” the CJI said. The bench disposed of thepetition.

Solicitor general Tushar Mehta, who happened to be present in the courtroom and who had a difficult time assuaging the judiciary’s hurt feelings because of the now-deleted reference to judicial corruption in class 8 social science textbook, immediately told the court that the Centre has already constituted a panel of eminent jurists — former Supreme Court judge Indu Malhotra and former attorney general K K Venugopal — to review every chapter on judiciary in all school textbooks in consultation with National Judicial Academy chairperson Justice Aniruddha Bose.

The Chief Justice of India said, “In a given case, the court was of the view that people have no right over the land, they are encroachers and hence can be evicted. Other people may say that these people have been living on that piece of land for 10-15 years and hence have a right to live there. That is their perception and it is their viewpoint.”

“If someone says the court's view is erroneous, there is nothing wrong in that,” the bench said. Mehta said, “Perception which an uninformed person would gather from the judgment can never be the concern of the judiciary. Uninformed person can have any perception of the judiciary.”
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