Take strict action against Jagan for 'contemptuous conduct' against SC judge: Law students write to CJI

NEW DELHI: Around 100 law students from across the country have written to the Chief Justice of India (CJI) requesting him to take strict action against Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jaganmohan Reddy for his alleged contemptuous conduct against Supreme Court's second senior-most judge Justice NV Ramana.

The law students, through a letter petition led by advocate Utsav Bains, said that under no circumstance can we let the independence of the judiciary be compromised and added that no politician in power can be allowed to bring the administration of justice in complete disrepute with impunity.

The letter emphasized that under the Constitution, a sitting Chief Minister has a well laid down grievance system but the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh intentionally ignored the laid-down procedure under the Constitution and committed a grave and serious attack on the independence of the judiciary, which was contemptuous in nature.

"These things cannot be ignored and if we remained silent years from now, our silence would be seen as complete surrender of the institution of the Supreme Court to a politician in power and will also lead to constitutional anarchy and legal chaos," the letter said.

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The law students, in the letter, gave the examples of constructive criticism by jurists such as Nani Palkhivala and Justice HR Khanna and wrote on the need to differentiate between constructive criticism and smear campaigns run on social media platforms with ulterior motives.

"The law students also cited examples of rape threats to women on Twitter and the recent rape threats to the child of MS Dhoni and said that the misuse of social media needs to be checked at the earliest," the letter said.

"If the faith of the common man is eroded then all is lost for the institution of the Supreme Court and that vested interests are wrongfully eroding the faith of the common man in the institution of judiciary by misusing social media," it added.

The representation has been submitted to Chief Justice SA Bobde with a request to initiate contempt proceedings against Jaganmohan Reddy and to formulate a mechanism to deal with smear campaigns against Supreme Court judges on social media platforms.