Disturbed to see midnight hearing, says Parasaran

| | New Delhi

The midnight hearing by the Supreme Court on the Congress-JD(S) plea to stall the oath-taking ceremony of BS Yeddyurappa drew sharp criticism from veteran lawyer K Parasaran. “Disturbed” to see judges working late through the night on a case where heavens would not have fallen, the former Attorney General wished to know if any criteria had been fixed to determine the type of cases where the Court will make an exception and allow hearing at odd hours in the night.

Parasaran appeared before the Bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices Ashok Bhushan and S Abdul Nazeer to argue the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title suit dispute case. Before opening his arguments, Parasaran said that “justice never sleeps” indicating to the late night hearing that took place in the Supreme Court on a plea to stall oath taking by the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) Government in Karnataka.

Incidentally, Justice Bhushan was one of the three judges on the late night Bench which, besides him, had Justices AK Sikri and SA Bobde as well. Parsaran said, “After this hearing one would want to know what are the cases where you (Court) will make an exception for hearing the case at night?”

Cases related to death penalty stand on a different footing, he said, drawing parallels with a similar hearing conducted by the apex court to hear the plea of death row convict Yakub Memon in the 1993 Mumbai Blasts case, hours before he was to be hanged. Parasaran said, “Life is the only exception where such a hearing can be warranted. In matters where life (of a litigant) is not involved, heavens will not fall and any decision can always be set aside later by the Courts.”

During the late night hearing, senior advocate and former AG Mukul Rohatgi, who appeared for three BJP MLAs, told the Court that the matter did not deserve a pre-dawn hearing.

A lawyer for the Congress-JD(S) combine rebutted by saying, in Karnataka, the Constitution was to be “hanged” which justified their urgency to knock the doors of the apex court late in the night.