'Attempts to malign court on rise if order not in favour in political case'

New Delhi: Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta Friday rued in the Supreme Court the growing trend of maligning the top judiciary and judges if an order in a political matter is not to the liking of a litigating party.

The remarks were made by the law officer before a bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justice Hima Kohli when senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Muku Rohatgi, appearing for the Chhattisgarh government, sought listing of the plea of Enforcement Directorate before another three-judge bench.

"This is quite unfair," Sibal, appearing for the Chhattisgarh government, said responding to the law officer's remarks.

The central anti-money laundering agency had moved the top court seeking transfer of a PMLA case related to the 'Nagrik Apurti Nigam' (NAN) or the Public Distribution System (PDS) scam outside the state. Few senior state bureaucrats are also accused in the case.

When Sibal was mentioning the case for listing before an appropriate bench, the solicitor general intervened saying, "First of all, I cannot choose the bench. Or I cannot avoid the bench. I am saying this with some degree of seriousness..."

The plea of ED was earlier delisted from the cause list by a bench comprising then CJI U U Lalit, since retired, and justices Ajay Rastogi and S Ravindra Bhat due to the paucity of time with the then CJI.

The matter was then posted before a bench comprising justices M R Shah and Hima Kohli.

The Chhattisgarh government had told the bench headed by Justice Shah not to proceed with the matter as it needed to be heard by a three-judge bench and then it came to be mentioned before the CJI's bench by Sibal.

"I have only this forum. I have no other forum. Even if it is not listed in Court number 5 (before a bench headed by Justice Shah). I have no difficulty. My worry is larger. This is happening too frequently. If one order is not to the liking in a political matter, you gather NGOs. Speeches are made to malign the entire institution saying I don't trust the institution. One wrong order, articles are written," the law officer said.

At the outset, the CJI told Sibal that he has already passed orders on Thursday assigning the matter to the bench presided over by Justice Rastogi.

"I just followed an objective criteria, to assign (the case) to the next senior most judge available," the CJI said.