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'Please Have Faith In System' : Supreme Court Disapproves 'Parallel Debates' By Petitioners On Pegasus Issue
Mehal Jain
10 Aug 2021 6:31 AM GMT
In connection with the Pegasus issue, the Supreme Court on Tuesday expressed some reservations regarding the petitioners, who have an interest in the matter, from conducting "parallel proceedings and parallel debates" on social media while the Court is seized of the issue and is dealing with it."Mr. Shyam Diwan, Mr. Kapil Sibal, Mr. C. U. Singh, Ms. Meenakshi Arora, Mr. Rakesh Dwivedi, all...
In connection with the Pegasus issue, the Supreme Court on Tuesday expressed some reservations regarding the petitioners, who have an interest in the matter, from conducting "parallel proceedings and parallel debates" on social media while the Court is seized of the issue and is dealing with it.
"Mr. Shyam Diwan, Mr. Kapil Sibal, Mr. C. U. Singh, Ms. Meenakshi Arora, Mr. Rakesh Dwivedi, all senior advocates appearing in this matter, we want to say at least this much- this is from me as well as on behalf of my 2 learned brothers- whatever be the people who are interested in the matter, if you want to say something in social media, Twitter, Facebook, newspapers etc, it is for them. But once you come to this Court, we expect the debate is taking place and we expect that they will answer the questions, the queries that we put to them through a proper debate within the court and not outside. They are all represented through counsel and they will answer. Please have some faith in the system, whatever you want to say, please file affidavits and we will go through that and the contents of that, we assure you. But instead of having a parallel debate, not that we are against such debates, but to have parallel proceedings when we are seized of the issue and we are looking into it...", expressed Chief Justice N. V. Ramana.
The senior advocates representing the petitioners agreed that they will accordingly advice their clients.
Continuing, the CJ Ramana addressed senior advocate Kapil Sibal- "You are not only a senior counsel but we respect you a lot. You have been a minister also. There must be some discipline...we ask some questions from all of you, in the adjudication, the bench will ask questions! Sometimes, it will be inconvenient, but both sides have to face this music. We expect answers. That does not mean that proceedings have taken place. This is the process. This is all we want to request you. If the petitioners want to say anything or bring anything to the notice of the Court, they can file an additional affidavit, we are allowing everybody"
"Absolutely, I entirely agree with you. When the matter is in court, there should be no public statements of any nature...", agreed Mr. Sibal.
However, he added that when he was appearing for former Editor of The Hindu and a petitioner in the matter, N. Ram, the bench had put to him a question as regards observations of the California Court on Indian journalists and others being targets of Pegasus, which had resulted in "mud being thrown" for allegedly making false claims in the petition.
"Your Lordships said to me that I had said that Indians have been targeted but I said that the California court has not said so...", Mr. Sibal sought to submit.
"This is the problem, that is taking the sentence out of context. I had a problem whether I had read properly or not. That is why I put the question. This is not correct. You should not cross the limits for anybody. We are following the procedure and system, they must have faith in the system", observed the CJI.
"This is such a serious issue. Full opportunity should be given to the government to explain...", submitted Mr. Sibal.
"Yes. We don't want to make hasty decisions, we want to give opportunity to everybody", noted the CJI.
On Tuesday, the bench was told by the senior advocates that the service of the advance copies of the petitions in the matter on the UOI is complete.
"I have received copies of all the petitioners, except one, possibly Yashwant Sinha. It is not a grievance, they can serve it. I have received them day before yesterday, and one or two, yesterday. I am in the process of going through the matter. I need instructions from the government. Subject to Your Lordships' convenience, if I can get time till Friday? I need two working days. Today we are on Tuesday, if we can have it on Friday. It can be any other day also but not before Friday", SG Tushar Mehta told the bench.
"I have personal inconvenience for Friday. I am not attending court on Friday. I can take it up on Monday", said the CJI.
When the counsel appearing for the one petitioner whose plea had not been received by the SG told the bench that they have duly served the same, the CJI observed, "It is fine. They are all identical cases"
When Senior Advocate CU Singh prayed if the Court would consider issuing notice on their pleas on Tuesday. "I will take a call on Monday", said the CJI.
On Tuesday, Senior Advocate Shyam Diwan pointed out that while he could see the other counsel in the matter very clearly on the screen, the visibility of the courtroom was blurred and the voice quality was poor. The SG also agreed.
"Please don't say that the image of the court is blurred, it will have some other meaning", remarked the CJI in a lighter vein.
"There are 300 people connected and there are journalists also. We will try to improve the system", added the CJI.
The cases will be heard on Monday.
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