In March, Justice Chelameswar wrote to Chief Justice fearing the judiciary's independence was endangered
Highlights
- "Want my retirement to be private affair," Justice Chelameswar told NDTV
- His exit is set to be as unusual as the last few months of his term
- Justice Chelameswar is the second most senior judge in Supreme Court
Justice Jasti Chelameswar, the second most senior judge in the Supreme Court, has refused an invite to his farewell by the top court's bar association. The 65-year-old retires on June 22. "I want my retirement to be a private affair. That is why I declined the farewell and told the Supreme Court Bar Association to respect my privacy," Justice Chelameswar told NDTV.
Office bearers of the Supreme Court Bar Association met the judge at his home on Wednesday for an hour but couldn't persuade him to change his mind.
Justice Chelameswar's exit, shorn of the traditional farewell party and speeches, is set to be as unusual as the last few months of his term.
He has been at the centre of controversies ever since he called a press conference at his home in Delhi in January and went public with his criticism of the way the Supreme Court is running under Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and how cases are assigned.
Three other judges, Justices Ranjan Gogoi, Madan Lokur, and Kurian Joseph, joined him in the unprecedented press conference that was spurred by a case involving Justice BH Loya, who died in 2012 of a cardiac arrest, at a time he was deciding on murder charges against BJP president Amit Shah. The case was first allotted to a junior judge.
In March, Justice Chelameswar wrote to the Chief Justice fearing that the judiciary's independence was endangered and expressing concern over the propriety of the law ministry writing directly to the Karnataka High Court despite a group of top judges reiterating a name for elevation to the High Court.
Justice Chelameswar also caused a flutter when he refused to hear a petition last month calling for a new system of rostering instead of the Chief Justice assigning cases. He said he was about to retire and didn't want "another reversal" of his order within 24 hours.
"You know my difficulty, you understand my problem," the judge said when lawyer Prashant Bhushan asked him to take up the petition by his father Shanti Bhushan.
"I am going to retire in a few days. I can't hear your petition on the allocation of cases. I don't want another reversal of my order in 24 hours," said the judge, referring to an earlier case in which his order was overturned by the Chief Justice a day later.
"Someone is carrying out a tirade against me that I am waiting to grab some office. For reasons too obvious in the history of the country, I will not deal with this case. It is the problem of the county. Let the country take its own course."