Supreme Court of India has issued a notice to advocate Manohar Lal Sharma to show cause as to “why he should not be debarred from filing and/or canvassing any Public Interest Litigation on account of the irresponsible and scandalous allegations levelled by him” in his pleadings challenging the NJAC. Sharma has been given a week’s time to reply to the show cause notice.
The notice was issued during the hearing of the bunch of petitions challenging the Constitution (Ninety –Ninth Amendment) Act 2014 and National Judicial Appointments Commission Act, 2014, by the constitution bench comprising of Justices JS Khehar, J Chelameswar, Madan B Lokur, Kurian Joseph and AK Goel. After another petitioner-in-person RK Kapoor completed his submissions before the bench at about 11.05 am, ML Sharma was called to make his submissions.
As he started his arguments, bench took an exception to his pleadings and Justice Lokur asked him how could he use words like “corrupt politicians and in-house criminals”. Justice Kehar then asked Sharma “How can you use such expressions, they are lawmakers. They are members of parliament.” [New Indian Express]
Justice Kehar remarked that it was an insult to the Parliament and to the people of India.
Bench observed:
This court will never be a party to a petition, prayer of which is of the nature that calls our parliamentarians as criminals. We can never let it pass off just like that. It is an insult to the Parliament and it is an insult to our country. We cannot allow anyone to malign our representatives.
You cannot malign our politicians and call them corrupt. You cannot say that corrupt politicians have framed this law. This is a very serious allegation and we cannot allow you to do so. How can say all this when we are hearing such a serious matter? [Indian Express]
Issuing the show cause notice, the Bench ordered:
Having considered the pleadings contained in Writ Petition(C) No. 14 of 2015 [Manohar Lal Sharma v. Union of India], we consider it appropriate to require the petitioner – Manohar Lal Sharma to show cause as to why the petitioner should not be debarred from filing and/or canvassing any Public Interest Litigation on account of the irresponsible and scandalous allegations levelled by him in his pleadings. The petitioner shall respond to the show cause notice in writing within one week.
