New Delhi: Thirteen Opposition leaders wrote President Droupadi Murmu demanding immediate action over online trolling of the Chief Justice of India, DY Chandrachud. They alleged that the said act was an interference with the course of justice, The Indian Express reported.
The signatories of the letter dated March 16 said that they all are aware that the Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court headed by the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud is seized of and hearing an important Constitutional issue in the matter of government formation and the Governor’s role in Maharashtra. The “troll army”, sympathetic to the ruling party of Maharashtra, has issued an attack on the CJI, while the mentioned matter is sub judice. The contents of the trolls are “filthy and deplorable”, the letter said.
The letter, written by Congress MP Vivek Tankha, was supported by party MPs Digvijaya Singh, Shaktisinh Gohil, Pramod Tiwari, Amee Yagnik, Ranjeet Ranjan, Imran Pratapgarhi, Aam Aadmi Party’s Raghav Chadha, Shiv Sena (UBT) member Priyanka Chaturvedi and Samajwadi Party’s Jaya Bachchan and Ram Gopal Yadav. Also, Tankha separately wrote Attorney General of India R Venkataramani on the same issue.
The case in question is the one concerning the validity of former Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari’s action to call for a floor test. The test ended up toppling the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in the state after Shiv Sena cleaved into two. Uddhav Thackeray-led government fell, and rebel Sena leader Eknath Shinde formed a government with BJP’s support.
On November 26, Constitution Day, former CJI NV Ramana expressed concerns over the surging attacks on the judiciary on social media. According to what he had said, the attacks are “sponsored, synchronized… motivated and targeted”, and he demanded central agencies deal with them. He had written law minister Kiren Rijiju requesting a law to curb attacks on judges through social media, but the minister har said that bringing a law to restrain criticism on judges is not feasible.