Supreme Court does not listen to common people, CJI Chandrachud’s counterattack on lawyer’s allegations – Use your mind…
The Supreme Court on Friday rejected the charge that it does not listen to common citizens and said it is listening to the ‘voice of the nation’ and the voice of the individuals of Kashmir on the issue of abrogation of Article 370. The Supreme Court said this while reacting to the email written to the apex court by lawyer Mathews Nedumpara. In the said email, Nedumpara had claimed that the apex court was hearing only Constitution Bench cases, in which there was no public interest involved and it was not hearing cases of common citizens. CJI Chandrachud asked the lawyer to remove from his mind the fact that the Constitution bench of the apex court is hearing ‘only a few favorite’ cases which have no bearing on the lives of common people. After the court faced criticism, Nedumpara said he saluted the court for doing a good job of enabling hearings digitally, which greatly benefited lawyers and litigants.
A bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud said, “Mr Nedumpara, I do not want to get into this issue with you, but the Secretary General has informed me about the email you wrote to the Supreme Court, in which you said That the Supreme Court should not hear Constitution bench cases and should hear only non-Constitution bench cases.” Nedumpara admitted that he had written the email to the apex court and said that by non-constitution bench cases he meant cases of common people.
Emphasizing the importance of Constitution Bench cases, the CJI said, “I just wanted to tell you that it seems you do not know what Constitution Bench cases are and you seem to be unaware of the importance of Constitution Bench cases , which often include interpretation of the Constitution, which forms the foundation of the legal framework in India.” He said, “You may think about Article 370 – this issue is not relevant. I don’t think the government or the petitioners in that case think so. In the Article 370 case, we heard from groups of individuals and interveners who came from the valley and presented his views before us. That’s why we are hearing the voice of the nation.”
After a 16-day-long hearing, the apex court had on September 5 reserved its verdict on petitions challenging the abrogation of most of the provisions of Article 370 of the Constitution that provided special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. The matter came to light after the top court refused to entertain a plea filed by a micro small and medium enterprises (MSME) company for which Nedumpara had appeared. It refused to entertain the petition on the grounds that the petitioner did not challenge it in the High Court and instead moved the top court against the magistrate’s order. While leaving after the order was issued, Nedumpara said the court should take care of small business enterprises, following which CJI Chandrachud questioned him about the email he had written to the top court.
The CJI informed Nedumpara about the recent Constitution Bench case, the outcome of which would impact the livelihood of many drivers across the country. The bench also included Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Mishra. The bench told Nedumpara, “All cases of the Constitution Bench are not necessarily interpretations of the Constitution. If you had come and sat in our court the day before yesterday, you would have known that we were hearing a case which was being heard by hundreds of others across the country. The livelihood of thousands of drivers was concerned. The issue was whether a person holding a license to drive a light motor vehicle could drive a commercial vehicle.”
