Justice Krishnan Ramasamy of the Madras High Court on Thursday came down heavily on deposed AIADMK leader O. Panneerselvam for having given a representation to the Chief Justice with a plea to transfer his civil suit against AIADMK’s July 11 general council meet to some other judge.
The judge said it was a “cheap” practice, which amounts to scandalising the judiciary and undermining its authority. Any grievance against the orders passed by him, permitting the general council meet, ought to have been tackled legally by taking it on appeal before the appropriate forum, he added.
“You have a statutory appeal remedy. You can go on appeal, attack my judgment legally and see that it is set aside. But this is not the way to deal with the issue. If this kind of practice is allowed, then every one will start to follow it and give representations to change the judge,” he said. When advocate P. Rajalakshmi, representing Mr. Panneerselvam, said that her client was aggrieved against certain observations made against him by the judge in the July 11 order, Justice Ramasamy said: “Your client has proven those observations to be true by his present conduct.”
He pointed out that even if the litigant was aggrieved against the observations, there was a legal remedy of dealing with them and, therefore, he should have resorted to those methods than insisting on change of judge. “This is a very cheap practice that scandalises the judiciary, undermines its authority and brings disrepute,” he added.
Now that the Supreme Court had remanded the matter to the High Court for fresh consideration, the judge decided to hear the case afresh from Friday. He said, it was for the Chief Justice to take a call on the representation on the administrative side and asked the counsel to place that representation before him too on Friday.
Later in the day, advocate N.G.R. Prasad made a mention before Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari on behalf of Mr. Panneerselvam regarding the remarks made by Justice Ramasamy, and insisted upon considering his representation to shift the case to some other judge. The Chief Justice said: “We’ll see.”
Mr. Prasad had made a similar mention on Wednesday, when the Chief Justice replied that he would take a call on the issue on the administrative side after having a word with Justice Ramasamy.
