"It Is Troublesome That The Dispute Between The Bar And The Bench Reached This Stage": Supreme Court In Yatin Oza Case-Read Full Courtroom Exchange

In connection with Gujarat High Court's contempt action and withdrawal of senior gown from Advocate Yatin Oza, the Supreme Court on Wednesday observed that it shall consider whether Mr Oza having served a particular part of the punishment, the top court can put his lifetime ban in abeyance, for the time being, subject to his conducting himself properly. In that case, for any future infraction, it will be up to the High Court to reinstate the life-ban.The bench of Justices S. K. Kaul and R. Subhash Reddy told Advocate Nikhil Goel for the High Court, "We are not asking you to go back to the High Court and seek consent. What we do and whether we do it and how we do it, we will do it ourselves now". It may be noted that previously, the bench had asked Mr. Goel to put this suggestion to the High Court to consider suspending the revocation of Mr. Oza's senior designation for a brief period, during which his petition in the Supreme Court will remain pending so that his conduct can be monitored, but the full court of the High Court had refused to show any leniency.On Wednesday, Justice Kaul told Mr Goel, "As regards what we can or cannot permit, in view of the legal position, we have a little advantage. The Constitution itself has conferred it under Article 142. Often we tend to do things under 142 which we find difficult to do otherwise. And it is not unusual for the Court to do so because we don't want to create bad precedents. Whether this is the case where we can use 142 or this path should not be traversed is something which we have not discussed between ourselves yet. We will also have to think whether we will traverse this path. Last time, we read the material (of the allegations against Mr. Oza, previous as well as in respect of the 2020 incident from which arose the present proceedings), andit was troublesome to us. But whether the mind should completely prevail or some part of the heart should also prevail is a debate which confronts a judge many times. And it confronts a judge because of the presence of 142. In the High Court, we never had the privilege..."The following is the courtroom exchange as it transpired on Wednesday:On Wednesday, Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, for Mr. Oza, had submitted, "The impugned order of the High Court attempts to, unfortunately, characterise my stand as justification and that there was no apology forthcoming from the inception. But whenever a person apologises, Your Lordships don't say that 'Okay, you apologise, I will let you off and you go home'! I have to give the context, I have to give the justification, but this justification is not in the sense of saying, 'I am right'. But the apology has to go with some explanation! So this finding of the High Court is wrong- on the one hand, the impugned order says that there is no reply to the allegations, and on the other, it says it is justification by me. The two are contradictory"Continuing, he had advanced, "Your Lordships' approach of apology (as apparent from contempt precedents) has been inclusive and magnanimous, while that of the High Court is very different. Somebody who tries to pull the wool over the eyes of the court will of course fall in a different category, but here is a member of the bar who is contrite and so his apology will fall directly under the first approach!"To this, Justice Kaul had remarked, "That you wanted to apologise right from the beginning but did not do so for some reason, the intent was so and so- It is not a layman we are talking about here, but it is a person with expertise in law and a very long career. So please keep this in mind while making the submission""Please do not see the submissions as the defence of any impropriety. I am arguing it only because Your Lordships should not feel we have nothing to say. According to me, a person who has had the ignominy and humiliation of having the gown taken away by his own High Court for more than a year has suffered enough...It (the revocation of the senior designation) is excessive, disproportionate, permanent and irreversible! In Einstein's terms, it is neither spatially nor temporarily circumscribed", he continued."We are saying that the High Court, in an appropriate case, can withdraw the gown for a fixed period of time and not permanently. Temporal and spatial limitations are very much part of Article 14. This is the heart of the Constitutional jurisprudence of this country. What is reasonable necessarily involves temporal and spatial restrictions. The opposite side is saying that if you are bad, how can you be temporarily bad and so the gown has to be taken away permanently. I do not agree with this- You are taking away the gown as a punishment; the first punishment need not be the death penalty or life imprisonment or may not even mandatorily be 10 years. Your Lordships can give two years or three years! Taking away the gown permanently will be death penalty!", pressed Dr. Singhvi.When Justice Reddy pointed out that what has...

"It Is Troublesome That The Dispute Between The Bar And The Bench Reached This Stage": Supreme Court In Yatin Oza Case-Read Full Courtroom Exchange

Mehal Jain

"It is not unusual for the Court to invoke its powers under Article 142 but we don't want to create bad precedents. Whether Yatin Oza's case is one where we can rely upon 142 or if this path should not be traversed is something which we have not discussed between ourselves yet."

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