Once upon a time, the Supreme Court’s stray caustic remarks during hearing of a PIL or a petition involving an important social or political issue was taken very seriously by the public, the government and the legislature. Media used to headline the comments.

Newspapers and TV channels still headline such caustic remarks, which now fly thick and fast from the SC and HCs on a daily basis. But these have lost their salutary effect.

An SC bench led by Justice Madan B Lokur, infuriated by the frustratingly lackadaisical approach of authorities towards proper garbage disposal, asked why not dump the garbage at Raj Niwas, the official residence of Delhi’s lieutenant governor. One may be tempted to ask, why not Rashtrapati Bhavan , since the President is the head of the country and also lives in Delhi?

Incidents of rape, that too by those who were guardians to hapless girls who had no one to run to, made the Justice Lokur-led bench to remark that “rapes are happening left, right and centre in India”. Are they? Incidents of assault on women are on the rise and do ring alarm bells. But when the SC says rape is rampant, it surely sends a signal to the world to brand India as unsafe for women.

The same bench, while hearing a PIL on extra-judicial killings in Manipur, summoned the director of CBI, which had been entrusted with probing the killings widely perceived to be excesses by armed forces.

To the bench’s question why the accused had not been arrested, the director said once chargesheet was filed, it was for the court to either send them to custody or grant them bail. Noticing that chargesheets had Section 302 IPC charges, the bench remarked that “murderers are allowed to roam free”. The SC bench forgot to use ‘alleged’ before ‘murderers’ to soften its un-required punch.

This had its adverse impact on the armed forces, whose personnel put their lives on the line in disturbed areas to allow the legislature, the executive and the judiciary to function without the fear of ultras. Moreover, it is common knowledge that an accused is presumed innocent till he is pronounced guilty. How would the SC respond if one of the accused in the chargesheet moves an application and asks since the apex court has already termed him a ‘murderer’, would he get justice from the trial court.

The SC has been freely making remarks against the executive and, in a few cases, against the legislature. In contrast, it has been very sensitive towards comments made against judges. It did not spare sitting Calcutta HC judge C S Karnan for making it a habit to launch diatribes against Supreme Court and high court judges and sent him to jail.

When a Rajasthan HC judge made disparaging remarks against the HC chief justice in a judicial proceeding (State of Rajasthan vs Prakash Chand [1998 (1) SCC 1]), the SC came down heavily on him for breach of discipline. It said, “It is unbecoming of a judge of HC to travel out of the confines of the issue before him and to fish out material to unjustifiably malign someone, more particularly when that someone happens to be the one who is the head of the judicial family in the HC. We most strongly deprecate this practice.” Probably, PILs allow judges to take a 360-degree view than limit themselves to the subject matter of the case in hand!

When the SC makes caustic observations, does it spare a thought that it might be hurting those bureaucrats who honestly do their jobs but are not succeeding in achieving desired results given the enormity of problems. When the SC has the licence to make such remarks, would HCs remain far behind?

Recently, the Uttarakhand HC made news by giving the Ganga living entity status. It also ruled that animals had rights equal to that of human beings. Just a few days ago, the HC threatened to turn the oldest tiger reserve, Corbett National Park, into a race track for cars as the government had not evicted forest-dwelling communities and had failed to protect animals.

Given the stinging observations of the SC, no doubt intended to solve problems, attorney general K K Venugopal sounded a caution and told the bench that there should be an impact assessment of orders on PILs at the ground level. He said before passing sweeping orders, the courts must examine impact on employment, investment and morale of the workforce.

Interestingly, the SC nearly three decades ago had made a virtue of judicial restraint. In A M Mathur vs Pramod Kumar Gupta [1990 (2) SCC 533], it had said, “Judicial restraint and discipline are as necessary to the orderly administration of justice as they are to the effectiveness of the army. “This quality in decision making is as much necessary for judges to command respect as to protect the independence of the judiciary. Judicial restraint in this regard might better be called judicial respect, that is, respect by the judiciary.

“Respect to those who come before the court as well to other coordinate branches of the state — the executive and the legislature. There must be mutual respect. When these qualities fail or when litigants and public believe that the judge has failed in these qualities, it will be neither good for the judge not for the judicial process.

“The judges have absolute and unchallengeable control of the court domain. But they cannot misuse their authority by intemperate comments, undignified banter or scathing criticism of counsel, parties or witnesses. We concede that the court has the inherent power to act freely upon its own conviction on any matter coming before it for adjudication, but it is a general principle of the highest importance to the proper administration of justice that derogatory remarks ought not to be made against persons or authorities whose conduct comes into consideration unless it is absolutely necessary for the decision of the case.”

These lines, said 28 years ago, still hold good for judiciary, if it wants to command respect from the public, the executive and the legislature.

