Ex-CJI BR Gavai and former judges slam SC judge Ujjal Bhuyan’s remarks on EC

Former Chief Justice of India BR Gavai and other retired judges on Monday condemned the remarks of Supreme Court judge Justice Ujjal Bhuyan on the Election Commission of India. Gavai said a sitting judge should not have made comments on the row over the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls as the matter is sub judice before the top court.

“Judicial propriety would not permit him to make any comment on the matter which is sub judice before the court,” Gavai said.

Retired Delhi High Court judges SN Dhingra and RS Sodhi also questioned Bhuyan’s remarks. Justice Dhingra said Bhuyan’s statement was “way beyond the limits of a sitting top court judge” and such comments should not be made at a public event when the issue is pending before the same court.

“He should have thought a thousand times before making such a statement,” Dhingra said, adding that Justice Bhuyan did not know the full facts of the issue.

Justice RS Sodhi also criticised Justice Bhuyan for calling the SIR exercise disenfranchisement and said that the right to vote was governed by the statutory framework.

“Whether you have a vote or you don’t have a vote depends upon the statute. If you fall within the parameters of the statute, you have a vote. If you don’t fall within the parameters of the statute, you don’t have a vote,” Justice Sodhi said.

“I mean, these hardline thinking and these hardline statements, to my mind, are not a very mature way of looking at a thing, especially when you are supposed to be in a field which is supposed to be excellent in its rationalising,” he said.

Justice Bhuyan had said that any process that “disenfranchises” millions of Indian citizens was “intrinsically arbitrary” and a “negation” of the constitutional order.

In his address at NALSAR University of Law on Sunday, Justice Bhuyan said the Constitution does not provide for two classes of citizens, one with voting rights and the other without voting rights, and no amount of “whataboutery” could justify such a process.

Justice Bhuyan said the Constitution does not create two classes of citizens based on voting rights and added that wholesale disenfranchisement would violate Articles 326 and 14. “No authority can do it; no court can condone it. No one is above the Constitution,” he said.

Recently, a section of NALSAR Hyderabad students had opposed the proposal to invite Chief Justice of India Surya Kant as chief guest to the varsity’s convocation.

Justice Bhuyan, who served as the Chancellor of NALSAR, said on Sunday that he can be legitimately proud of the students of the institution. “You have shown to the country and the world what a university student, that too, a student of law, should be like. You are brilliant. You are bold and you are brave,” he said.