Judge and prejudice: On conduct in judicial proceedings
Judicial officers must be mindful of language that reveal bias
The Supreme Court of India has rapped judges over the knuckles, asking them to refrain from making “casual observations” that reveal their communal bias or misogyny. Judicial proceedings are live-streamed in some courts across the country, with a wide reach beyond the four walls of a courtroom, and the top court was firm that judges, and everyone in the judicial fraternity, must be aware of the responsibility and act accordingly. The “heart and soul of judging is to be fair”, it observed, and noted that judges must strictly adhere to the values laid down by the Constitution, and not be guided by prejudice. Taking suo motu cognisance of video clips featuring Karnataka High Court Judge V. Srishananda and his sexist comments to a woman lawyer on two separate judicial proceedings, a five-judge Special Bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) D.Y. Chandrachud observed in its order on Wednesday that off-the-cuff remarks by judges would show them in a negative light and impact the entire judicial institution adversely. On a previous occasion, the Karnataka High Court judge had referred to a Muslim-dominated locality in west Bengaluru as ‘Pakistan’. The Bench took a stern note of that remark as well, contending, “you cannot call any part of the territory of India ‘Pakistan’… This is fundamentally wrong under the Constitution”.The judge apologised after the suo motu notice, and calling it a “contrite apology”, the top court said it was concluding the proceedings, but not before making several observations in open court. In fact, Attorney General R. Venkataramani and Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had advised the Court to hold the procedure in-house so that its remarks are not misrepresented on social media later. To this, the CJI quipped, “The answer to sunlight is more sunlight. The answer is not to close our doors and shut out everything.” Last month too, the Court had cautioned a judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court to stop making “random, unwarranted” remarks during proceedings. In 2023, the Court released a handbook to combat gender stereotyping within the judiciary. Aiming to assist the legal community in “identifying, understanding and combating stereotypes about women”, it came out with a glossary of gender-unjust terms, suggesting alternative words or phrases to be used while drafting pleadings as well as orders and judgments. It is imperative for court officials to be gender-sensitised. The judicial ecosystem must run without any bias towards any community. Stereotyping any person on the lines of gender or religion will perpetuate harmful inequalities, and carriers of justice should be mindful of this at all times.