No case is big or small for us, says CJI after law minister’s remarks

Mumbai: No case is big or small for courts, Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud said at a memorial lecture in the city, after recent remarks by the union law minister Kiren Rijiju in parliament that the apex court should not be hearing bail matters and frivolous public interest litigations. Rijiju had said that SC should hear constitutional matters.

“No case is big enough or small enough for the courts, be it district judiciary or High Court or the Supreme Court. Because it is on us the confidence of the people and the due process of law and the protection of liberties rests,” the CJI said addressing the audience at the Ashok Desai memorial lecture organized by the Bombay Bar Association.

On Wednesday, the union minister had said in parliament that a Constitutional court like the Supreme Court of India should not hear bail applications and frivolous Public Interest Litigation (PILs).

"If the Supreme Court of India starts hearing bail applications, if the Supreme Court of India starts hearing all frivolous PILs, definitely it will cause lots of extra burden on the Honourable Court itself, because the Supreme Court by and large is treated as a Constitutional court," he had said.

On Friday, while hearing a case, the CJI had expressed similar views by saying that "no case is too small for the Supreme Court".

On Saturday, at the lecture, he spoke regarding a case of electricity theft in which a person’s sentence in nine different cases was running consecutively instead of concurrently. The SC had directed that the sentences run concurrently. 

The CJI said, “We had to intervene in that case yesterday. The point that we have made is, sermonising apart, trust us to be the guardians of the liberty of the citizens of this nation.”

Published on: Saturday, December 17, 2022, 09:13 PM IST