Law Kumar Mishra
Patna, February 27
Union Law and Justice Minister Ravishankar Prasad on Saturday warned that criticism of judges on social media would not be tolerated.
Speaking at a function to mark the inauguration of the Centenary building (Shatabadi Bhawan) of the Patna High Court, Ravishankar said though he supported freedom of media, the government would not allow misuse and abuse of social media.
He said adverse comments were being made against the judges to condemn them for not giving favourable orders. This is a new disturbing trend as judges are being trolled. “Any kind of trolling and public criticism of judges is unfair. This needs to be prevented,” he added.
Minister warned the government will not tolerate the actions of those trying to set the agenda against the judiciary. “If you do not get orders according to your choice, you start to criticise judges, this is intolerable,” he added.
Ravishankar recalled the two days old government circular against social media to regulate and discipline them and asking them to reveal the sources of originators of unlawful messages. “I am a product of the JP movement which advocated freedom of speech and media, still I feel, the media should not misuse its freedom to abuse judges.”
Ravishankar who holds IT and communications portfolios also praised the judges from Supreme Court to lower courts for their outstanding performance during the pandemic period and claimed 76.38 lakh cases were heard through video conferencing in the last one year when physical hearing was suspended. The Supreme Court heard 2.23 lakh cases during Corona period.
Ravishankar announced Indian Judicial Services on pattern of IAS, IPS and IRS would be created in consultation with the Supreme Court and Union Public Service Commission to recruit young law graduates into the Bench. He said young law graduates and fresh members of the state judicial services can compete for IJS through competitive examinations and successful candidates would be posted as additional district judges. Their cadre would be divided into clusters of states, he said.
Union IT ministry has created the national judicial grid for the convenience of the lawyers and judges. Free litigation consultations have been arranged to the poor litigants, he claimed
Chief Justice of India Justice S A Bobde, who inaugurated the new building having about 50 court rooms spread on five floors, said during the Pandemic period, a new lesson was learnt that justice delivery system was technology dependent as digital filing of cases, distance hearing was done. “We need more equipment to make the distance justice delivery system successful,” he added.
During the Corona period, both litigants and lawyers suffered and the Supreme Court had to open mental health clinics for counselling.
He praised the chief justice of Patna High Court, Justice Sanjay Karol for being environment friendly and not allowing destruction of Peepal trees in Patna High Court campus for construction of the new building. He made the engineers to change the design and reshape the building complex to save Peepal trees,Justice Bobde said ,
He recommended pre-litigation mediations to check the rising number of both civil and criminal cases in the courts and recommended laws should be changed to make the mediations having force of law.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar promised all support to the judiciary for speedy trial of cases and fair justice to the common man. He said it was the responsibility of both the judiciary and the executive to ensure Rule of Law. The new building constructed for Rs 204 crore would replace the old building inaugurated by the then Viceroy Lord Hardinge in 1916.
