Bar Council Issues Show Cause Notice To Dushyant Dave For Remarks Against CJI, Collegium System

The Council has decided to issue show cause notice for such gross misconduct and has asked him to file his reply within four weeks,

Outlook Web Bureau

Updated on: 28 September 2017 7:49 pm

The Bar Council of India (BCI) on Thursday issued a show cause notice to Senior Advocate and former president of Supreme Court Bar Association Dushyant Dave for his comments against the Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra and the collegium.

"The bar council has taken serious notice of the statement by Mr Dushyant Dave...The Council has decided to issue show cause notice for such gross misconduct and has asked him to file his reply within four weeks," read the statement issued by the Council stated, reported Bar & Bench.

Dave had spoken on news channel against the collegium after the senior-most judge of the Karnataka High Court, Jayant Patel, had resigned on Monday.

Dave had earlier said on a channel that the collegium system does not work well for selecting judges. He further alleged bias in the system by saying that "those with good potential are often rejected because of personal enmity with a judge on the collegium and bad candidates are not stopped."

Justice Patel was part of a division bench of the Gujarat High Court that had ordered a CBI probe into the Ishrat Jahan encounter in 2011. He had served as the acting chief justice of Gujarat High Court before being transferred to the Karnataka High Court.

Reacting to Dave's allegations, BCI chairman Manan Kumar Mishra said the remarks of the senior advocate had "lowered the dignity of legal fraternity and the institution".

BCI's stand came in for support by another lawyers' body SCBA which also condemned the statement of its former President Dushyant Dave, terming his remarks as "scurrilous and baseless personal attack" on the head of the institution.

"He (Dave) has been in the habit of targetting successive Chief Justices of India in the recent past without any basis", the SCBA statement said.

However, Dave stands unfazed on his previously made comments, reported Bar & Bench. "I haven’t still got the notice and not read it . But what I said on NDTV last night is the truth," he told the website.

He further said that it is a matter of grave concern that the conduct of judges go unchecked and allegations against CJI Misra were very serious.

With Agency Inputs