BCI, AIBA slam Kapil Sibal for his controversial statement on Supreme Court, judiciary
New Delhi: The Bar Council of India and All India Bar Association on Monday showed displeasure with senior Advocate Kapil Sibal on his remarks against Supreme Court and Judiciary.
Talking to ANI, Senior Advocate Manan Kumar Mishra, Chairman Bar Council of India (BCI) said, "It is very unfortunate that Kapil Sibal has passed such a remark. Kapil Sibal is a stalwart in the legal field and also a former Law Minister of the country. Losing 2-3 important cases doesn't mean, one has the right to target the judiciary. Judiciary is a free and independent institution. It should not be attacked." "If you are taking weak cases and later lose them in Court of law, you can't blame judges and judiciary," said senior Advocate Manan Kumar Mishra.
Meanwhile, the All India Bar Association (AIBA) through a press statement has termed the statement of former Union Minister for Law and Justice Kapil Sibal as "contemptuous" lamenting that he has lost hope in the Indian judiciary.
Dr. Adish C Aggarwala, senior Advocate and Chairman of AIBA said, "Courts decide cases by applying the law to the facts presented by cases before them. They owe allegiance to the Constitution and none else."
Dr. Aggarwala, who is former Vice Chairman of Bar Council of India and Supreme Court Bar Association said, "Criminal cases which were instituted by the then Governments as a political witch-hunt, where detailed investigations have been carried out but failed to disclose any evidence, had to be given a burial and if that has happened, no fault can be found with the judicial system. Courts are not to deliver judgments hanging people just to assuage the feelings of a certain community."
"A robust system is insulated from sentiments and is influenced only by the law. Kapil Sibal is a seasoned senior advocate. It does not behoove him to decry judges and judgments just because the courts did not agree with his or his colleagues' submissions. It has become a trend that when a case is decided against someone, that person starts denouncing judges on social media alleging that the judge is biased or the judicial system has failed. This is wholly contemptuous and coming from someone of the standing of Kapil Sibal who was also President of the Supreme Court Bar Association, it is unfortunate too. If cases have not been decided to the liking of Kapil Sibal, it does not mean that the judicial system has failed," said Dr Aggarwala.
"Sibal is an integral part of the justice dispensation system. However, if he actually feels a loss of hope in the institution, then he is free not to appear before the courts", added Dr Aggarwala.
Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament and senior advocate, Kapil Sibal, in an event, has expressed his displeasure over some of the recent judgments passed by the Supreme Court saying he has "no hope left" in the institution.
"If you think you will get relief from Supreme Court, you are hugely mistaken. And I am saying this after completing 50 years of practising in the Supreme Court," Sibal said. Even if a landmark judgment is passed by the apex court, it hardly ever changes the ground reality, he added.
Sibal criticized the Supreme Court for dismissing the plea filed by Zakia Jafri, widow of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, challenging the clean chit given by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several others in the 2002 Gujarat riots; upholding the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act which give vast powers to the Enforcement Directorate; and dismissing a plea filed in 2009 seeking an independent investigation into alleged incidents of extra-judicial killings of 17 tribals by security forces during anti-Naxal operations in Chhattisgarh. (ANI)
