The resolutions to reprimand Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal and Advocate Neeraj Kishan Kaul for apologising to the Chief Justice of India for the outbursts of SCBA President Senior Advocate Vikas Singh have angered a number of members of the Supreme Court Bar Association.
At the time of the report’s publication, a letter signed by over 470 lawyers (including 53 senior advocates) was delivered to the SCBA Secretary, requesting that the resolutions filed against Sibal and Kaul be withdrawn.
“We believe that the proposed Resolutions are antithetical to the core values that the SCBA and the Bar are meant to uphold and stand for,” the letter stated, cautioning that calling into question the views expressed by advocates inside a courtroom would be a “unprecedented and dangerous” move by the SCBA.
Fali S Nariman, Mukul Rohatgi, CS Vaidyanathan, Arvind Datar, KV Vishwanathan, Parag Tripathi, Chander Uday Singh, Huzefa Ahmadi, and other notable lawyers have signed on to this letter.
The resolutions proposed against Sibal and Kaul will be considered at the SCBA’s Annual General Body meeting on March 16, 2023.
Background
The controversy stems from events that occurred before the CJI’s bench on March 2, when Senior Advocate Vikas Singh requested an urgent listing of a petition filed by the SCBA demanding room for lawyers’ quarters in the premises given to the Supreme Court by the Central Government. Singh raised his voice, expressing his disappointment that the topic had not been listed despite being raised on multiple previous occasions, which CJI Chandrachud did not appreciate.
During a heated exchange, the Chief Justice asked Singh to leave the Court. Soon after, Senior Counsel Sibal and Advocate Kaul, who were in Court for the Shiv Sena matter, apologised on behalf of the bar for Singh’s outburst.
Following this, almost 200 attorneys wrote to the SCBA suggesting a resolution against Sibal and Kaul for tendering apology “without knowing the matter and without consulting anyone in the Executive Committee”. They demanded that a show-cause notice be issued to the couple, demanding an explanation. Almost 180 lawyers have filed another resolution to show sympathy with Vikas Singh’s attempts to build a chamber.
Expressing distress at the proposed resolutions against Sibal and Kaul, the signatories of the letter stated: “The fact that the SCBA seeks to take affront to the exercise of these very rights, which it is supposed to protect, is therefore, extremely troubling, especially when it is sought to be done in response to statements made at the Bar, and that too in the aftermath of certain events that transpired in the Courtroom of the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India”.
