15 ex-judges and 77 former bureaucrats, as well as 25 retired officers from the armed forces, have condemned the Supreme Court for recent remarks against Nupur Sharma (the since-suspected BJP leader) who made comments about Prophet Mohammed that sparked protests and a diplomatic dispute.
Their open letter says the two-judge bench’s observation — that she is “single-handedly responsible for what is happening in the country” — was a “virtual exoneration of the dastardliest beheading at Udaipur”. A tailor named Kanhaiya Lal was murdered in Rajasthan’s Udaipur last month by two men over his social media posts supporting Nupur Sharma.
Ms Sharma requested that the FIRs she had been registered under inflict against her throughout the country be combined and moved to Delhi. The court, on July 1, refused her plea and made some scathing comments. The judges said Nupur Sharma’s “loose tongue” had “set the entire country on fire”, and that her comments were either for cheap publicity, political agenda or some “nefarious” activities. These observations weren’t part of the final order.
The open letter issued today says those “unfortunate and unprecedented comments” from the bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice JB Pardiwala “are not in sync with judicial ethos”. “Such outrageous transgressions are without parallel in the annals of judiciary.”
It says the observations had “no connect” with the issue raised in her petition. As she was “denied access to judiciary” — the letter adds — there was “an outrage on the Preamble, spirit and essence of the Constitution of India”.