'Don't be sentimental': CJI Surya Kant brushes aside plea over ‘Cockroach Janta Party’

NEW DELHI: CJI Surya Kant, who had clarified that he respected youth of India a day after his 'cockroach' remark went viral and led to setting up of a satirical Cockroach Janta Party, on Monday made light of a lawyer's emotive arguments accusing CJP founder Abhijit Dipke of attempting to denigrate and defame the judiciary.

Advocate N K Goswami sought urgent listing of a PIL seeking action against Dipke for attempting to distort the CJI's remark and commercially exploit the situation using social media algorithms to sensationalise the issue by misquoting and misusing the CJI's remark without specifying the context. The bench led by CJI Surya Kant heard Goswami briefly and brushed aside the issue by advising him, "Don't take it so sentimentally".

On May 16, the CJI had said that he had used the term cockroach to express his anguish over some people, with ulterior motives, practising as advocates without having a law degree or with fake law degree and similar people doubling up as media and social media activists.

The PIL petitioner alleged that the founder of CJP is selectively quoting the CJI's courtroom observations and converting it into digitally marketable contents with a political colour to make it to go viral on social media. The PIL said that since the live telecast of courtroom proceedings commenced after Covid pandemic, the clips of court proceedings are being increasingly converted into "viral spectacles detached from procedural context and constitutional seriousness" in the digital ecosystems "governed by outrage algorithms, trolling culture, meme warfare, emotional mobilisation and monetised virality".

It said that such online behaviour and machinations pose the threat of "organised digital humiliation" to the constitutional post holders and institutions in an attempt to harm their dignity and the faith reposed in them.

On May 16, the CJI in a statement had said, "I am pained to read how a section of the media has misquoted my oral observations made during the hearing of a frivolous case yesterday. What I had specifically criticised were those who have entered professions like the Bar (legal profession) with the aid of fake and bogus degrees. Similar persons have sneaked into the media, social media, and other noble professions as well, and hence, they are like parasites."

"It is totally baseless to suggest that I criticised the youth. Not only am I proud of our present and future human resource, but every youth of India inspires me. It is not an exaggeration to say that Indian youth have great regard and respect for me, and I too see them as the pillars of a developed India," the CJI had said.