By Aditya Aamir
Through the looking glass, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley at times gives the impression he is like ‘Alice in Wonderland!’ You know Lewis Carroll’s fantasy? Jaitley, of the incarcerated-during-Emergency-fame, is cross with media reporting on an allegation made against Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi by a junior assistant of the apex court.
Four media outlets – Scroll.in, The Wire, The Caravan and The Leaflet – ran stories on the sworn affidavit of the former junior assistant at the Supreme Court, alleging sexual harassment and abuse of power by the CJI. All four media organisations separately sent questions to the CJI seeking his response to the allegations. But an official statement was sent by the secretary general of the Supreme Court on the morning of April 20.
This was the first time such a charge of sexual harassment has ever been made against a Chief Justice of India. There’s a mechanism to deal with such matters and it devolves on the CJI to assess whether the complaint should be heard. But what if the complaint is against the CJI?
That is when Jaitley’s Facebook post of April 21 came, which the Scroll.in says “contains a thinly veiled threat of contempt of court proceedings against those who have reported the contents of the affidavit”, meaning the Scroll.in, The Wire, The Caravan and the Leaflet.
Quite the abnormal – a cabinet minister interjecting himself into such a controversial and sensitive case. Even Alice in Wonderland would wonder, whether she was seeing all this through the looking glass, or in reality, happening in front of her!
Tuesday, the top court was hearing the matter after a lawyer shot an affidavit to it, stating that he has vital information to part regarding the case. CJI Ranjan Gogoi had before that asked Justice SA Bobde, next in line to become CJI, to look at the “matter of great public importance touching upon the independence of the judiciary”.
A bench consisting of Justice Arun Mishra, Justice Rohinton Nariman and Justice Deepak Gupta heard the matter on Tuesday. But allegations of the “judiciary was under threat” to “there are bigger forces behind these allegations” had started doing the rounds when Jaitley wrote his Facebook post.
The complainant junior assistant was said to have a “criminal background” and that the complaint against the CJI was an attempt to “deactivate the office of the CJI”. The apex court, while issuing an order, says the Scroll.in, suggested that the media should “act responsibly before publishing such allegations”, though it did not clarify what would happen if the media persisted.
The secretary-general of the SC, in his response to the four media organisations, called the allegations against the CJI, “completely and absolutely false and scurrilous,” and said that there were “mischievous forces behind all this with an intention to malign the institution”.
But it is Jaitley’s post, titled “It’s Time to Stand up With the Judiciary”, which ought to be seen through the looking glass; a powerful lens. Jaitley starts his post by branding the four media portals with having “unparalleled track record of ‘institutional disruption’”, asking how can they send “similar questionnaires to the Chief Justice of India.” His conclusion: “There is obviously something more than meets the eye.”
Perhaps, Jaitley does not know that while lawyers pose questions in court, media ask questions in writing or ask them face to face during interviews and that there is nothing wrong or “disruptive” in media asking questions. And, like the Scroll.in says, “There is no conspiracy nor anything strange about media organisations sending questions. This is a routine that all respectable media platforms follow, of giving a person or persons against whom allegations have been made, an opportunity to respond.”
And if the questions are “similar” that could be because the material on which they are based is the same. That the questions were sent the same day illustrates that these media organisations did due diligence and did not rush to publish.
Jaitley should do a crash course in journalism to understand the various media and the way they function in the age of new media. Things have changed with the onset of digital media and for Jaitley to say that “for the ‘institutional disruptors’ there are no red lines,” is like the Scroll.in says, “disingenuous, uninformed and patently untrue.”
All media, whether newspaper or digital, follow the same journalistic norms and are held to scrutiny under the same laws. Jaitley has by referring to the media organisations as “institutional disruptors” actually acknowledged their standing as responsible media.
“Independent judiciary and free media are both essential in a vibrant democracy,” Jaitley writes. “Both have to live with each other. In order to co-exist, both must respect the respective rights of each of these institutions. One cannot take upon itself the task of destroying the other.”
Ah ha! What ingenuity, bend it like Jaitley! Contempt of court proceedings threats seem to be the BJP‘s weapon of choice against media “disruptors” and rival politicians, “instead of suggesting that the court assert its independence and credibility by following due process in dealing with the allegations made?”
And, while at it, Jaitley could also look at his party BJP’s record of the last five years on respecting the independence of the judiciary and encouraging a free press. Nobody is above the law and that includes the keepers of the law and the makers of laws. (IPA Service)