 Good evening everybody friends. On behalf, I know it's not the time for a welcome speech but never mind. On behalf of the organizers who you can see the Lawyers Forum for Democracy and Justice and Lawyers Collective, I welcome all of you to this meeting and I have to of course appreciate the work put in by Ravi Garia and his colleagues and it let me tell you it doesn't surprise me that the majority of the people here are not actually from the Supreme Court of India or from the High Court but from the District Courts and I want to say loud and clear that these are the people who will ultimately stand up for the independence of the judiciary not the high-flying lawyers in the Supreme Court who charge one crore of fee for one appearance they will never stand up for independence of the judiciary. So we are here today to identify those people who are going to be committed to the independence of the judiciary for a long long time to come. The reason is that we are facing threats to the independence of the judiciary as all of you might be aware and I personally believe that the judiciary cannot collapse unless the bar first collapse. Many people have said many people have said that the bar and the judiciary are like two wheels of the chariot but I would say the bar is the first wheel of the chariot you collapse and the judiciary will happily collapse and that is the purpose of having this meeting we want to mobilize lawyers we want to alert lawyers to some of the dangers which lie ahead in the next couple of years we are so going to have a Chief Justice who's going to retire in October we are all faced with this question in front of us who will be the next Chief Justice of India will it go by convention in which the Chief Justice of India will recommend the incoming senior most judge who's going to be Justice Gogai or will it be that he will not be recommended or not be appointed for the singular reason that he was one of the four who attended the press conference now as far as I'm concerned I'm here to celebrate that very very historic event of a press conference by four sitting judges of India Supreme Court of India it has never happened before you will all agree with me and everybody has said it's an it's an event of historic importance but what is the importance and what is the historic importance of this event all of you know that when a way back in the 70s when Justice and Ray was made the Chief Justice of India several judges resigned and protest because they were superseded now in my opinion this event of four judges coming out is as significant well I would not like to call it a protest I would call it an outreach an outreach on their behalf to signal to the people of this country that you are living in very dangerous times I have never in my more than 50 years of practice at the bar seen a sitting judge say that matters are being assigned to benches of preference court unquote benches of preference what does it mean I was recently asked this question on and India today conclave madam are you saying that benches are fixed in the supreme court of India I said no I didn't say benches are fixed the four judges said matters are being assigned to benches of preference you draw your own conclusions and some of you can go back and look at the roster and find out which matters were they referring to which matters was assigned to which bench and you will see a pattern over there and let us not forget that the immediate provocation for the assignment for the press conference was the fact that justice lawyers matter was on that very day listed for hearing before a bench presided over by a justice Arun Mishra and that was the provocation you know because I realized the historic significance of that event I actually went and attended this press conference and I was shocked that I of all the millions and hundreds of lawyers in the country I was the only lawyer present at that conference but I knew that the event is so historic that I didn't want to miss history in the making and that is why I went many lawyers by the time the press conference took place many people in the supreme court came to know that a press conference is being held in the residence of justice chalamet sure but nobody nobody thought it proper to attend that press conference and be part of this very historic event why why because they didn't want to be seen over there they didn't want to be noticed this is the reason and see even today you know you will not see you know lawyer senior lawyers coming here and remaining present in a program like this that is why it's more important for us to hold programs like this repeatedly because we need to build a body of people at the bar who will say we are not chamchas of judges we are not going to take positions only because judges may or may not give us orders why are these lawyers not coming out and saying anything why does the supreme court bar association pass a resolution supporting these the chief justice of India we saw how badly the president of the bar behave when prashant pushan's matter was being argued arguments were made in court take contempt of court action even today some lawyers have said take contempt of court action against these four judges but why are they doing it because they want to be in the good books of judges because they want to get favorable orders from these judges and that's part of the malaise that's affecting the legal system please understand today go look around you who are the judges they are sons and daughters of judge sons not even daughters sons of former judges it is now the judiciary in this country has become a hereditary institution if your father's a judge you can safely assume that you will also become a judge and they want to become judges judges sons want to become judges but they make it they make it into the judiciary only because of their networks and their links i have written earlier articles in which i said in today's world your wealth is not your real estate anymore it doesn't matter how many homes you have what matters is what is your social network like how many people do you know how many people can you approach how many people can you do sypharish this is your network and it's your network not your net wealth which is going to decide whether you are going to be obviously more upwardly mobile and people like us who retain a certain ethics at the bar we do not communicate with judges we do not associate with them we are not part of these networks we are people who stand on our own feet and let me tell you we succeed we are among some of the most successful lawyers in the country it is we who are the successful lawyers of this country it is not the lawyers who charge one crore for an appearance who are the successful lawyers of this country so independence of the judiciary also means independence of the bar independence of the bar from the judiciary independence of the bar in terms of their integrity and ethics i have always believed that lawyers should be ethical about the arguments that they make in court but what is this misuse thing we need to think a little bit about it i have throughout my career always told my clients you know if you get up in a court of law and tell the truth you will win your case because nobody will be able to demolish you from cross examination but if you lie in a court of law take it from me any lawyer can get the truth out of you and prove that you're a liar so telling a lie being unethical for lawyers doesn't work it doesn't succeed you're not going to win your cases by telling lies so ethics in the legal profession is also very important and ethics in the way we keep our distance from judges we don't we don't go to we go don't go to a judges then do salam salam keep your distance from judges and i can assure you you will succeed now i would like to of all of you know these things sometimes i feel i'm carrying coal to new castle but nevertheless i think sometimes people you know always read the preamble to the constitution of india because we have a tendency to forget it but my favorite in the whole constitution is the oath of office which judges take the oath of office and what does the oath of office say to bear true faith and allegiance to the constitution of india as my law established to uphold the sovereignty and integrity of india to truly and faithfully do the best of my ability knowledge and judgment perform the duties of office without fear or favor affection or ill will and uphold the constitution and its laws now if this oath of office is to be if the judges have to be true to this oath of office then they cannot assign matters to benches of preference only because they happen to be interested in the outcome of the case and many people have suggested that one of my friends is here in the audience dr. Mohan Gopal he will expand on this i hope he has suggested that an allegation like this benches of preference is an impeachable offense in my offense in my own admission it is far more impeachable than just being monetarily corrupt we will talk a little bit about so okay even at the press conference i raised one question when justice chalamesh was on his feet and he said i want to alert you that democracy is in danger i asked him sir can you spell it out is there interference of the executive with the judiciary that's my question to you him what they're the job though so he looked at me across the room like that and he said he's just saying you wait here i will talk to you and he did talk to me and i did ask him the question but i will not tell you the answer he gave because it's up to him to give the answer but all of us can find out the answer for us self what what who's interfering in the look at the cases just have a look at the cases the Sahara diaries in which names of chief justices were found were assigned assigned to justice Arun Mishra lawyer's case assigned to justice Arun Mishra where Hamid Shah was implicated in the Surabdin encounter case then of course the MCI case again assigned to justice Arun Mishra so you make up your mind as to per day keep each a corner i'm sure he will be able to give us a share about per day keep each a corner it is very unfortunate that there are no criteria for the appointment of judges in this country at all except that ten years of practice as a lawyer all right every one of us sitting here is eligible to become a judge why am i not appointed i want to know why not i have ten years of practice at the bar all of you have ten years of practice at the bar why are you not being appointed there are no criteria spelled out in the constitution of India for appointment of judges it's time for us to demand that spell out the criteria i did this in the case of senior lawyers i said who's being designated only children of judges children of seniors at the age of 35 get designated as seniors what happens to all the others who have worked for years together and have accumulated so much knowledge and the supreme court had to render a judgment saying there have to be objective criteria since then do you know there's been a demand made and partly this demand is coming from government quarters also that if there are criteria for appointment of senior lawyers why are there no criteria for appointment of judges who will scrutinize their judgments a judge who says that this is a case of love jihad and dissolve the marriage is this the kind of person to be appointed a judge of the high court no these are not the kind of people who should be appointed and i hope dr mohan gopal will speak a little more he has his own preferences of what kind of system should be put in place for appointment of judges where we need a total scrutiny of the political background of judges prior to their appointment not after their appointment now what that system is i am not in a position to clearly spell out at this meeting no is it my task it is something that i would like all of you to respect to to reflect on i now would like to say a few words about the judgment delivered as recently as two days back and i hope somebody here is going to read out one of those messages maybe you can read out we have a message from prakash ambedkar on this on this particular judgment but just look what the judges have done and atrocities act sc and st to protect them has been converted into an act to protest protect the upper classes the upper castes the whole act has been transformed from an act to protect the deprived sections of society to an act to protect the upper castes and why did this happen he one of my colleagues i hope he's here in the audience he raised this question to me he said when it came to triple the luck what did you do you appointed a bench so-called interfaith bench hindu muslim parsi christian and so on and seek interfaith why did you appoint an interfaith bank don't forget they never had an intergender bench never mind but at least they had an interfaith bench why because they wanted to have some sense of credibility about the judgment they give that this is not a judgment being given by a bunch of hindus against muslims now look at the sc st judgment two judges of the upper caste give a judgment reversing reversing the whole mandate of the atrocities act why is this happening do you know it's happening because there is not a single sc st judge on the bench of the supreme court today as of today you know i'm reminded of what rupandil bhajaaj asked me her case was coming in the supreme court for argument and it came before two men she asked me miss jai singh in the vishakha judgment your supreme court has said that there should be an external member woman NGO so my case me lady judge kyu nahi hai i said madam ji is ka jawa bhi hai ke supreme court me woman judge hai nahi toh mai kaha se lakit hua aapko agar hoti toh mai definitely ek request karthi unko ke reconstitute karo when her case was argued there was not a single woman judge on the supreme court this is the client it's a litigant asking you are hai tum log judgements lete jaar rahe ho lekin aap apne case mein kya kar rahe ho so this is the credit crisis of credibility that the judiciary is facing today and this is the crisis of credibility open that we are going to have to case they've done the same thing for women in the rajesh kumar case women are misusing the law don't arrest poor mothers in law and fathers in law okay please don't arrest them because women are misusing the law so this whole thing of misuse how is it that only s c and s t and women misuse the law and not the ambanis and the adhanis and the niram modis because they can flee the country they don't need to misuse the law they can just subvert the law subvert the law you don't need to misuse the law so again i'll request dr. mohan gopal to say a little more about this theory of misuse i know that he has his own views on the subject and now i come to one of the main reasons for having this meeting democracy in danger we are here to support the unanimous resolution of the supreme court collegium to appoint justice joseph and to appoint indumand otra as judges of the supreme court this has not been done it is our demand that the warrant of appointment should be issued immediately the reason is and manisha hope will speak a little more about this because he you know is something of an insider which i am not he somehow has access to the ministry of law which i have no access to and he will be able to tell us you know the movement of the file from one desk to the other how it went from one desk to the next desk where it came back where it is stuck manisha i'm looking forward to your telling us the whole story inside story of this case so i'm not an astrologer and i'm unable to predict whether these attempts to interfere with the functioning of the judiciary are going to succeed what i can see though is an internal collapse of the judiciary the judiciary has collapsed from within okay and no outsider can make you collapse unless you want to collapse and this is what has happened in this country and it is in this context that i would like to unambiguously congratulate the four judges who came out and spoke and alerted the nation that independence of the judiciary is in danger democracy is danger and just as go guys said we have discharged our debt to the nation imagine what poignant words if they are discharged their debt to the nation it's now time for us to discharge their our debt to the nation i have my own heroes my heroes of the 21st century let me give you a couple of names for me Edward Snowden is a hero because he alerted the world about the dangers of surveillance by the by the united states administration the young man who gave us insider information of what was going on in Cambridge Analytica is one of my heroes okay and my last list of 21st century heroes are the four judges of the supreme court who came out and said to the nation your democracy is in danger these are the heroes of the 21st century and let me tell you the days of you and me being heroes are gone we are witnessing a phenomenon where insiders are heroes insiders these are the whistleblowers again thanks to dr. Mohan Gopal i've come to this conclusion these are the whistleblowers of the country these four judges have been the whistleblowers of this country and dr. Gopal i hope will also tell you a little bit more about a proposed amendment to the whistleblowers act where judges must be declared whistleblowers i would just conclude by saying that the four judges have given a call to action and i know for a fact that they are very disappointed about the fact that the legal profession has not risen to the call but this meeting today with so many of you present over here shows that we have risen to the call and we will continue to rise to the call till the judiciary is cleansed of all the kachla which is varela in the judiciary