"Most Unfortunate": Madras High Court On Retired Judges Making Comments About Action Against Lawyer For Alleging Caste Bias By Judge

The bench of Justice GR Swaminathan and Justice K Rajasekaran was hearing the case in which the court had summoned Advocate Vanchinathan to explain if he stood by his statement that one of the judges of the bench (Justice Swaminathan) was exhibiting caste and communal bias. The bench has now placed the matter before the Chief Justice for further orders.

After the action was initiated against Vanchinathan last week, eight retired judges of the High Court had made an 'appeal' to the bench to give up any action taken and remarked that the action against Vanchinathan was premature. The retired judges remarked that the bench should have awaited any decision by the CJI on the complaint given by Vanchinathan.

“Most unfortunate that when the court is seized of the matter, remarks are given by certain retired judges of this court. The very organising of the public meeting by Vanchinathan is unfortunate and would amount to contempt. But however, these are only tentative observations made by this court…As requested by Vanchinathan himself, we direct the registry to place the paper before Chief Justice for taking action,” Justice Swaminathan said.

On July 24, the bench had summoned Vanchinathan for alleging communal and caste bias by Justice Swaminathan. The bench had directed Vanchinathan to appear before it personally.

Today, when the matter was taken up, the bench asked Vanchinathan if he still stood by the allegations. To this, Vanchinathan asked the bench to give in writing the charges against him, which he would then reply.

The bench, however, clarified that it had not initiated any contempt proceeding against Vanchinathan yet, and action to be taken would be based on his reply to the Statements.

Justice Swaminathan also said that Vanchinathan had been slandering him for the past three years, but the judge had chosen to keep quiet all this time. The judge added that it was one thing to criticise his judgments but another thing to make personal allegations against the judge. The judge also remarked how, in an interview, Vanchinathan had said that the judge had been favoring one Lawyer because he belonged to the Brahmin community, while targeting another lawyer just because he did not belong to the Brahmin community. 

The court also noted that in his reply, Vanchinathan had proceeded on the presumption that the present proceedings were linked to the complaint given by him to the Chief Justice of India and other judges. The court clarified that the present action was only based on the interviews given by Vanchinathan to medias where he had repeatedly alleged that the judge was exhibiting caste and communal bias.