Two advocates on Friday sought attorney-general R. Venkataramani’s permission to initiate contempt proceedings against Sanjeev Sanyal, member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, for allegedly saying that the judiciary was the “single biggest hurdle” to Viksit Bharat.
The statutory request has been made by Rohit Pandey, former secretary of the Supreme Court Bar Association, and Ujjawal Gaur, advocate and member of the SCBA. The request for permission is a prerequisite for initiation of contempt proceedings by private individuals under Section 15 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971.
According to the advocates, Sanyal needed to be hauled up for asserting that “the judicial system and the legal ecosystem, but the judicial system in particular, is now in my view the single biggest hurdle to becoming Viksit Bharat and growing rapidly. I have said this before and I am saying
it again…”
Sanyal had reportedly made the remark at a public event.
Commenting against colonial-era terms used in courts, Sanyal had reportedly said: “You cannot have a profession where you use words like ‘My Lord’ or when you’re doing a petition, it’s called a ‘prayer’. You’ve got to be kidding me.”
In the letter to Venkataramani, the two advocates also cited Sanyal’s remark on court vacation. “The judiciary is a public service like any other part of the state. Let’s say the doctors decide that we will take summer vacation, Dussehra vacation, winter vacation and shut down the hospitals… would that be acceptable? Why is it acceptable for the courts?”
He had likened the legal profession to a “medieval guild with a caste system of stratification”, questioning the existence of senior advocates, advocates-on-record, and even whether a law degree should be required to argue cases in court, the advocate duo claimed.
“While respectful and constructive criticism of legal processes is both permissible and desirable in a democracy, the above remarks, particularly branding the judiciary as the ‘single biggest hurdle’ to national progress and dismissing the Bar as a ‘medieval guild’ amount to a sweeping attack on the entire judicial system,” the letter stated.