Amicus curiae and senior advocate Gopal Subramanium on Thursday criticised former Supreme Court judge Justice Markandey Katju’s “derogatory remarks” against the Justice R.M. Lodha Committee recommendations and apex court judgment during a press conference organised by BCCI, a litigant.
Making his submissions before a Bench led by Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur, Mr. Subramanium termed the press conference as a ruse to “subvert” the binding nature of the July 18 Supreme Court judgment which upheld the Lodha reforms in cricket administration.
He was referring to the August 8 press conference held by Justice Katju to submit his report to the BCCI on the implementation of the Justice Lodha recommendations.
“A former judge can always give advise. That has been done all these years. But I have not seen an instance of a former judge holding a press conference to give his opinion. At the press conference, that too organised by the BCCI, derogatory remarks were made about the Justice Lodha Committee and the judiciary…” Mr. Subramanium submitted.
“I have great, great reservation about what happened. There is an honour in everything. But for a party [BCCI] to subvert the judicial process is nothing short of criminal contempt,” the amicus said.
In his press meet in August, Justice Katju had criticised the Justice Lodha panel and the Supreme Court judgment delivered by Chief Justice Thakur in the BCCI case, saying their intention to clean up cricket may be good, but it cannot be done by “throwing the law to the winds.”
“They may have had very good intentions, but can you implement your good intentions by throwing to the winds the law... by casting aside the law? They want to clean up the world of cricket. There is also a lot of cleaning up to do in the world of judiciary. By having just good intentions, can you say I do not need to follow the law...” Justice Katju had said in a phone interview to The Hindu.
