NEW DELHI: Advocate
Rajeev Dhavan, appearing for an original plaintiff in the
Ayodhya land dispute case, on Wednesday settled scores with
CJI Dipak Misra whose comments had forced him to quit the profession on December 11, only to stage a comeback.
A three-judge bench headed by CJI Misra interrupted Dhavan a couple of times when he was arguing that the appeals be referred to a five-judge bench. What irritated Dhavan was the CJI’s insistence that he had not argued this point during earlier hearings. Dhavan raised his voice and said, “I had argued this before. Please stop it (saying I had not argued before). Give lawyers some respect. It had led to my leaving the profession. Every sentence I argue, the CJI says Ihad not argued. I do not want this to happen.” The CJI requested him to continue.
On December 5, Dhavan had joined senior advocate
Kapil Sibal in questioning the SC’s decision to take up the Ayodhya case for early hearing. They wanted the court to hear it after July 2019 (after the Lok Sabha elections). They had also questioned the locus standi of
BJP member
Subramanian Swamy in requesting, and the wisdom of the court to accept it, to post the appeals for early hearing.
The ugliness of the proceedings on December 5 was marked by Dhavan threatening to walk away from the hearing if his request was no acceded to by the bench headed by CJI Misra. A few days later, the CJI termed Dhavan’s arguments atrocious and this led to Dhavan writing a letter to the CJI communicating his decision to quit the profession.
However, main advocate for the Muslim plaintiffs in the Ayodhya case,
Ejaz Maqbool, and others were able to convince Dhavan to reconsider his decision and Dhavan again wrote to the CJI intimating him that he was staging a comeback.
During the arguments, Dhavan said, “My heart and soul is in this case since long. The soul went away in 1992 when the masjid was demolished. But my heart is still there.” Referring to his raised voice, Dhavan said he rarely got angry and that a lawyer always indulged in “costume drama”. Dhavan also had a skirmish with Swamy. Swamy said Dhavan opposed his coming to the hearing dressed in traditional kurta and pyjama and termed the lawyer’s remarks scurrilous. Dhavan said, “I have opposed his intervention as a non-party, whether he sits in the front bench or not is a different matter.”
