In his first reaction to the incident after a lawyer in his seventies allegedly hurled a shoe toward him inside his courtroom earlier in the day, Chief Justice of India B R Gavai told The Indian Express that he asked the lawyer arguing before him to “just ignore it”. “I am not distracted by all this. You also don’t be distracted and proceed further with the case,” he said Monday afternoon, recounting his immediate response to the incident that took place during mentioning hours in Court No. 1. The Chief Justice, who appeared unruffled, said nothing landed on him or his desk. “I only heard the sound. Maybe it fell on some table or somewhere,” he told this newspaper, adding, “I only heard him say ‘maine Gavai saab ke taraf pheka tha’. Perhaps what he threw landed somewhere else and he was trying to explain.” The man, identified later as Advocate Rakesh Kishore, was quickly escorted out by security personnel. “An advocate who was present inside the courtroom at the time said the man flung something at the CJI during mentioning hours. The ‘attacker’ then waited there for some seconds before being escorted out,” an eyewitness told The Indian Express. The Indian Express has reliably learned that the CJI directed the Supreme Court Registry not to take any action against the lawyer — a decision that was eventually communicated to the Delhi Police, following which he was released. The lawyer, sources in the Delhi Police said, had attempted to throw his shoe at the CJI to protest the latter’s remarks during a recent hearing of a plea seeking restoration of a Lord Vishnu idol in the Khajuraho Temple complex in Madhya Pradesh. Presiding over a Bench with Justice K Vinod Chandran, CJI Gavai had made the remarks on September 16 while dismissing a plea seeking the reconstruction of a dilapidated 7-foot-tall Lord Vishnu idol at the Javari Temple in Khajuraho. “This purely publicity interest litigation… Go and ask the deity himself to do something. If you are saying that you are a strong devotee of Lord Vishnu, then you pray and do some meditation,” the CJI had told the petitioner. After criticism on social media, CJI Gavai clarified on September 18 that he “respects all religions” and that his comments were made in the context of the Archaeological Survey of India’s jurisdiction over the temple’s upkeep. “I believe in all the religions, I respect all the (religions),” he had said. On Monday, the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) also issued a statement expressing its “profound shock, outrage, and unequivocal condemnation of the reprehensible act…”. “This incident, reportedly stemming from a misguided backlash against the Hon'ble Chief Justice's judicious observations in the Khajuraho Vishnu Idol Restoration matter, where His Lordship emphasized respect for all religions and clarified his remarks amid social media distortions, cannot be tolerated. It constitutes a direct assault on judicial independence, violates constitutional values of decorum and discipline, and gravely undermines public confidence in the justice delivery system.” The Bar body commended the “calm composure and exemplary restraint demonstrated by the Hon'ble Chief Justice of India, who, in the face of this grave provocation, continued to discharge his judicial duties with dignity and poise, upholding the highest traditions of the judiciary.” It also “reaffirms its complete solidarity with the Hon'ble Chief Justice of India and the companion Judges of the Supreme Court.”
