Jana apologises to SC judge

NEW DELHI: Few eyebrows were raised when Supreme Court judge Justice V N Khare left half-way through a press conference held on October 17 to announce the achievements of the law ministry in the past three years.
It looked perfectly normal as he had already released and received CD-ROMs of the Law Commission’s report.
No one, not even the law minister Jana Krishnamurthy, realised that Justice Khare was miffed.But the minister had to ultimately tender a written apology to the apex court judge for the inconvenience caused.
Sources say that Justice Khare had protested to the law minister the next day pointing out that he was not told the occasion was to praise the ministry’s achievements and that too in full media glare.
According to a law ministry official, ‘‘Justice Khare was only told that the CD-ROMs would be released.
He did not know about the presence of reporters. It would have been unethical on his part to answer policy-related questions. Anyway, his presence is against the SC’s 16-point Restatement of Values of Judicial Life — a compendium of what is expected of judges of the Supreme Court. His protest is justified.’’
To make matters worse, a protest also came from Law Commission chairperson Justice M Jagannadha Rao, who told Krishnamurthy that the release function was hijacked by the law ministry which had embarrassed him as well as Justice Khare. Krishnamurthy has apologised to him as well.
The officials also point out that had Justice Khare who is the most senior judge after chief justice-designate Justice G B Pattnaik, stayed back, it would have definitely caused embarrassment.
‘‘Krishnamurthy spoke about the vacancies in the high courts, pending cases and reiterated his resolve to set up a National Judicial Commission (NJC). The Supreme Court is not in favour of setting up the NJC. hence, Justice Khare rightly left midway,’’ the official adds.