NEW DELHI: Chief Justice Dipak Misra, in his Independence DayIndependence Day speech on Wednesday, made an indirect reference to the unprecedented press conference by the four most senior judges in January this year, where he was criticised, saying that criticising and attacking an institution was easy, but transforming it was a challenge.“To criticise, attack and destroy a system is quite easy. What is difficult and challenging is to transform it to a performing one. Constructive steps need to be taken with a positive mindset of reform, and it must be undertaken with rationality, maturity, responsibility and composure,” the CJI said after unfurling the national flag on the Supreme Court premises.
“There may be some elements who try to weaken the institution, but the judiciary will refuse to succumb. We have to serve the lady of justice. She holds the scales of justice, symbolising that the act of delivering and imparting justice has to be balanced as far as possible, and that is the basic essence of justice. Anyone who tries to create any kind of dent in that balance is hurting the queen of justice. And when the queen of justice sheds tears, possibly all of us will shed tears”, Chief Justice Misra said. “It is essential that one should work hard in silence and with utmost sincerity and his work shall make the noise, I use noise, the word noise, in a symbolical sense.”
Justice Ranjan Gogoi, in his Ramnath Goenka lecture in July this year, had said that “independent journalists and noisy judges” were the need of the hour in the country.The CJI’s remarks came at the Independence Day celebration organised by the Supreme Court Bar Association, which also saw Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in attendance. This is the first time he has seemingly reacted publicly to the controversy that erupted after the January Press conference.