New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday expressed grief over the "new trend" of maligning judges by governments in case the delivered verdicts are not in accordance with their liking. The apex court pointed out that it is a new trend started and termed it as 'unfortunate'.
According to reports, the stinging observations were made by a bench headed by Chief Justice NV Ramana while hearing two Special Leave Petitions (SLP) filed by an anti-corruption activist earlier in the day.
"Whatever fight you may take, that is alright. But do not try to malign the courts. I am watching in this court also, it is a new trend," news agency PTI quoted CJI as saying.
"It's a new trend started, Government has started maligning the Judges! It's unfortunate" the Chief Justice of India rued.
The SC bench was hearing two separate appeals filed by the Chhattisgarh government and an activist respectively challenging the High Court's decision to quash an FIR registered against a former IAS officer for allegedly amassing wealth beyond known sources of income.
Later, responding to a senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the state government in one of the two appeals, who said he was not pressing that point at all, the CJI said: "No, we are watching it every day. You are a senior counsel, you have seen this more than us. It is a new trend. The government has started maligning judges. It is unfortunate."
Another senior advocate Siddharth Dave, appearing for anti-corruption activist Uchit Sharma, asserted the HC verdict quashing the FIR was a judgement based on probability.
Dave also said the probe was not based on surmises as the allegations were that the officer in question has accumulated Rs 2,500 crores.
Reacting to Dave's remarks, the bench expressed amazement and said this appeal is an exaggeration.
"Don't generalise people like that. Tomorrow when the government changes and another government comes then lakhs become thousand..., the CJI said.
The Bench will continue to hear the matter on April 18.
(With inputs from PTI.)