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HC objects to Bihar minister's criticism of judges

Our Correspondent in Patna

The attack on some judges by Bihar Excise Minister Shivanand Tiwary in his speech in the legislative council has evoked a sharp reaction from the Patna high court.

A special bench headed by Chief Justice Ravi S Dhawan expressed deep concern on Wednesday at the minister's criticism of judges in the council last week.

During the debate on the role of the office of accountant general in the animal husbandry scam, Tiwary, who is also the national spokesman of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, accused the two judges on the bench set up to monitor the case of working to fix Laloo Prasad Yadav.

He was critical that the judges wanted to save the accountant general and decried the observation made by another Patna high court judge some time back that "there is jungle raj in Bihar".

In the same vein Tiwary recalled how a Delhi high court judge had once dubbed Parliament a fish market.

Reacting to the minister's speech, a special bench of the Patna high court asked the advocate general to convey the court's concern to the chairman of the council. The advocate general admitted that such remarks were unfortunate.

When contacted by rediff.com on Thursday morning, Chairman Jabir Husain said the high court had only performed its duty by expressing concern.

"In fact I interrupted Tiwary more than 10 times during his speech to maintain norms and not to exceed limits. I then expunged all his remarks casting aspersions on the judges," he said.

Prof Husain said both the high court and the legislative council were constitutional bodies and ought to know and respect their frontiers.

He said the high court had the right to express concern, just as the council had once expressed concern over a remark by a Patna high court judge about 'Bihari officials'. "We held a debate in the legislative council and communicated to the Patna high court our deep concern. A court may observe something against an individual, but not against the entire community on grounds of place of birth [Bihar in that case], religion, caste, creed etc. We sent copies to the Supreme Court too," he said.

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