Trust judges on CAA, says former CJI Gogoi

Ahmedabad: Former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi said on Monday that people must trust judges. He was speaking at Gujarat National Law University (GNLU) as part of ‘We, The People’ lecture series. “The matter [CAA] is pending before the Supreme Court. Trust your judges. They will decide according to the Constitution,” he said.
Justice Gogoi said that everyone might have a view on the CAA and have the right to express it.“Protests have been held, viewpoints have been expressed. Enough,” he said. “You can’t have two parallel forums,” he said, referring to the issue pending at the Supreme Court.
This was Justice Gogoi’s first public lecture after he retired from the Supreme Court in November 2019. “I thank Gujarat for giving me freedom — the first smell of freedom of speech,” he said. “Judges don’t have the freedom of speech.”
Justice Gogoi also referred to students in his home state who called off protests after sundown to prevent any violence. He said that this constructive role played by the students helped improve the law and order situation ‘overnight’. “Perhaps the most important fundamental duty is to the respect the unity and integrity of the country,” he said. Assam was the first state where protests broke out after the CAA was passed by the Parliament in December last year.
In his lecture on ‘Rebuilding the Judiciary: Nation Building’, Gogoi said that many don’t want to become judges today. “Good people are backing out, saying sorry sir, we don’t want to get into this,” he said. “Look at our appointments system — the day a name is recommended, 100 letters are sent against him, alleging from A to Z. He doesn’t get appointed. He doesn’t become a judge and his professional and personal lives are shattered.” He appealed to the law students to address the problem.
Justice Gogoi also praised the role of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and said that if Patel had been around for 10 years after India’s independence, the country would have been different. He later called for rebuilding the judiciary, ‘the way Sardar Patel built the nation.’