Katju (left) and Jaitley: war of words.
IANS/New Delhi
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Arun Jaitley yesterday asked Press Council of India chairman Markandey Katju to quit, saying a person holding the post must be impartial.
But he drew a strong reaction from the former Supreme Court judge who charged the opposition leader with distorting facts.
Katju retorted that Jaitley was talking “nonsense and rubbish” and resorting to personal attacks.
The leader of the main opposition party made his demand after accusing Katju of attacking non-Congress governments in Bihar, Gujarat and West Bengal on the basis of “his political preferences.”
In an article on the BJP website, Jaitley said Katju’s attacks “seem more in the nature of thanks-giving to those who provided him with a post-retirement job.”
Jaitley said Katju had over the past week released a draft report on behalf of the Press Council alleging that the media in Bihar was not independent.
He followed it up with an article in an English daily attacking the Gujarat government and Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
Jaitley said Katju’s article against Modi read more like a personal tirade and wondered whether the former judge was trying to hold a brief for those who have been convicted in the Godhra train burning incident.
Katju had said “there is still a mystery of what happened in Godhra” and he found it hard to believe “that Modi had no hand in 2002,” referring to the Gujarat riots.
The BJP leader took exception to Katju’s remarks that the people of the country should not make the same mistake made by the Germans in 1933.
“I concede to Justice Katju the right to hold his political views, but can the occupant of a job whose functioning is quasi-judicial openly participate in political activity? His appeal is political. He appears to be more Congress than the Congress Party,” Jaitley said, adding he should “either quit before actively participating in politics or be sacked.”
“Though initially known for his scholarship, Justice Katju was never a conventional judge. His utterances, both during his tenure as a judge and thereafter, are clearly outlandish,” Jaitley said.
“Dignified comment is alien to him.”
Jaitley said that judges of the Supreme Court and high courts must not be eligible for jobs in the government after retirement.
“In some cases the pre-retirement judicial conduct of a judge is influenced by the desire to get a post-retirement assignment,” he said.
“The chairman of the Press Council discharges a statutory job. His job requires fairness, impartiality and political neutrality,” Jaitley said.
“Additionally, a judge, whether sitting or retired, is expected to conduct himself with sobriety, dignity and grace. He cannot be loud, crude, outlandish or behave like a megalomaniac,” Jaitley said.
He said a judge should refrain from involvement in political controversies. If he desires to get into political activity or a political debate, he should cease to hold his judicial or quasi-judicial office.
Modi also tweeted in support of Jaitley’s article, claiming that Justice Katju looked at Gujarat with a “jaundiced eye.”
“Justice Katju looks at Guj with a jaundiced eye. Jaitley ji’s insightful article demolishing lies spread about Guj,” he posted.
Reacting to Jaitley’s article, Katju told a TV channel that the BJP leader was talking “rubbish and nonsense.”
He said the Jaitley was “not cut out for politics” and alleged that he had “distorted” facts. “He (Jaitley) should resign from politics,” Katju said.
Accusing Jaitley of stooping to a low level and “launching a personal attack,” Katju said he would not do the same.
Countering Jaitley’s argument of targeting non-Congress chief ministers, Katju said he had written a letter to Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan in November last year strongly condemning the arrest of two girls from Palghar town in the state for criticising on Facebook the state shutdown following the death of Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray.
He said he had also written to Congress leader Virbhadra Singh, now chief minister of Himachal Pradesh, over his remarks to a cameraman during campaign in the state assembly polls.
Reacting to Jailtey’s remarks on post-retirement assignments for retired judges, Katju said the post of the chairman of the Press Council has by convention been given to a retired judge of the Supreme Court.
“There are many judges who have been given post-retirement posts,” he said, adding that Justice J S Verma, Justice Swatantra Kumar and Justice D K Jain had been appointed as chairmen of the National Human Rights Commission, the National Green Tribunal and the Law Commission respectively.
“Why does Mr Jaitley forget the post-retirement appointments given by the NDA (the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance) when he was the law minister?” Katju said.
He claimed at least two judges were transferred from their parent high courts to the Rajasthan High Court “for reasons well known to Mr Jaitley and about which I do not wish to comment.”