A petition has been filed in Supreme Court against Senior advocate Dushyant Dave over his bold arguments in context to sexual harassment charges against former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, and last week’s Rafale and Ayodhya judgment during the hearing of contempt case against Prashant Bhusan.
The petitioner Sharad Yadav has sought the withdrawal of Dushyant Dave’s designation as a senior advocate and stated that Dave made a run down on Supreme Court judges by raising unconnected issues in the case against Bhushan. Yadav has also called Dave’s submissions disproportionate and leading to the demolition of the dignity of the apex court.
Senior counsel Dushyant Dave during the hearing of contempt proceedings against Prashant Bhusan on August 5, had made references to the sexual harassment charges against former CJI Ranjan Gogoi. Dave had also questioned his nomination to Rajya Sabha and getting Z security for the favourable judgments Gogoi had given.
“Rafale judgment, Ayodhya judgment, CBI judgment. You get Rajya Sabha seat and Z plus security. What impression does it give? Rafale judgment, Ayodhya judgment, CBI judgment. You give these judgments and have these benefits. These are all serious issues that strike at the core of the judiciary,” Dave told Justices Arun Mishra, BR Gavai, and Krishna Murari.
Dave has also questioned “why only certain judges get politically sensitive matters? Justice Nariman for example — he never gets assigned such matters.” To which Justice Gavai replied that Justice Nariman had been a part of many constitutional bench matters and cited the example of Manipur case.
Dave then argued that he was mentioning the politically sensitive matters and he also claimed that he can list out almost 50 such cases to cite examples in the case.
The petitioner has stated in his petition, “The petitioner feels except aggrandisement of self-righteousness and anointing himself as custodian of rectitude and custodian to the conduct of Supreme Court, nothing explains the brashness of Sh Dave to demolish the dignity of Supreme Court and create social/judicial disorderliness – impacting the fundamental rights of the petitioner.”
The plea further stated that the conduct of Dave in apparently projecting himself as a vanguard amongst the saviours of the Supreme Court’s majesty, loathsomely trashes judicial decisions and denigrates judges who are apparently against his choice certainly inconsistent with the “dignity of senior advocate designation”.
Yadav through his petition has called Dave’s conduct outrageous and has submitted that “his senior designation should be recalled so that an equivocal message goes to the countrymen, that a person howsoever powerful in his narcissist overdrive cannot self assume the authority of being judgmental of the Hon’ble Judges conduct of shoot off statements, vilifying the Supreme Court unless backed by legal foundation of binding precedents.
Dushyant Dave’s bold arguments had led to a lot of praise and criticism from some as well.
