Activist advocate Prashant Bhushan had it coming. His conviction for contempt by the Supreme Court ought to serve as a salutary lesson to all those who are in the habit of routinely abusing ---- yes, abusing, not criticising --- the highest court in the land. Institutional dignity and public image demanded the disciplining of the habitual offender. He seems to have made quite a career out of running a vile campaign against the court, and, simultaneously, running the PIL enterprise. Nowhere in a free country one knows of a separate company dedicated to only filing PILs. Bhushan has done that.
Of course, it is far-fetched to suggest that the courts are infallible. No. They certainly are not. But so long as in our constitutional system they hold a stellar place as the ultimate protector of the rights of the citizen, including the precious right to free speech, traducing the apex court day in and day out, ascribing base motives, cannot be allowed to go unpunished. Just as Bhushan claims to hold the executive and other institutions of the constitutional democracy in order, it is the onerous duty of the judiciary to hold him to account when he errs --- and errs so egregiously. Meanwhile, it is sad to see liberal commentators jump lemmings-like, to defend Bhushan without considering the enormity of the abuse hurled at the highest court.
Calling 16 former heads of the court ~corrupt~ did not deserve a reprieve. But impelled by nothing higher than their animus of the political executive, the liberal commentators are ready to forsake the dignity and public respect for the Supreme Court. Little do they realise that calling former CJIs corrupt, or mocking the present CJI for a presumed motorcycle ride which wasn’t, shakes the very foundations of the liberal constitutional order the legion of critics of Bhushan’s conviction claim to defend and uphold. If it is the democratic constitutionalism they are concerned about, they should be welcoming the conviction, lest Bhushan’s repeated verbal atrocity against the court induces others to follow suit.
It is significant that the editor of the magazine which had quoted Bhushan as calling the 16 CJIs corrupt offered an unconditional apology. But great man that he is, Bhushan would only offer regret, not apology. And yet, our bleedingheart liberals would have liked the court to show magnanimity, to have broad shoulders and let the habitual offender go scot-free. So that he can continue running the PIL enterprise and pretend to be a great crusader for the rights of the common man! Granted, reflexively we tend to be a little wary of those who seek name and fame for doing 'good work.’
As the 108-page judgment convicting the PIL advocate contended, 'false and malicious tweets’ to scandalise the court do not in any way fall in the ambit of fair and just criticism. They reek of malice aforethought. For, it allows the likes of Bhushan to preen themselves as the sole guardians of the constitutional order. Without doubt, some or much of the criticism of this and previous courts might have more than a kernel of truth. But without putting oneself in the shoes of the CJI and other judges, without appreciating the larger contexts and demands made for the sake of the preservation of the state, security and order in one part of the country or the other, ascribing base motives to the court for not listing some matters while listing some others, is to show an utter lack of awareness of the inner workings of the governance system.
No constitutional institution can operate in a self-created bubble, a vacuum as it were, without being mindful of the wider constitutional scheme of things. What Bhushan and his ilk would probably like the apex court to do, is to ape the driver of a Ferrari, step on the gas regardless of the condition of the road, potholes, helter-skelter crowds, all manner of vehicles, including hand-driven carts and cycle-rickshaws. That would surely lead to a collision, in which both the Ferrari and the others would suffer badly. And would be a sure recipe for wrecking the system from the inside.
Unless one is an anarchist, various constitutional institutions must work in harmony and even understanding, at this nascent stage in our democracy. The Republic would not have survived 70- plus years if one branch was completely blind to the unavoidable secular needs and compulsions of governing a country which, anyway, was never easy to govern from its very inception. Besides, only those with extraneous motives can defend the degeneration of freedom of speech into licence to abuse and insult and humiliate the judges of the highest court in the land.
