Justice GR Swaminathan slams Advocate Vanchinathan for accusing him of caste and communal prejudice. The Court warns against crossing the line between criticism and defamatory attacks.
Chennai: On July 28, In a highly dramatic courtroom scene at the Madras High Court on, Justice GR Swaminathan strongly confronted Advocate Vanchinathan over his serious allegations that the judge was biased based on caste and religion.
Justice Swaminathan accused the lawyer of running a continuous and baseless campaign to damage the image of the judiciary.
During the hearing, which was conducted before a bench consisting of Justice Swaminathan and Justice K Rajasekar, the judge directly addressed Vanchinathan with a sharp remark:
“You are a comedy piece.”
He further commented,
“I don’t know who called you all revolutionary. You are all comedy pieces.”
These comments came after Advocate Vanchinathan refused to answer the judge’s questions orally and instead requested the Court to issue a written order.
The matter arose because the Court had summoned Vanchinathan regarding several of his social media posts and video interviews. In these, he had allegedly accused Justice Swaminathan of making judicial decisions based on caste and communal prejudice.
In a stern response to these serious claims, Justice Swaminathan clarified that while judges are open to being criticised for their judgments, making allegations of caste-based bias is a completely different matter and not acceptable.
He told the advocate:
“Mr. Vanchinathan, I 100 per cent respect your right to brutally criticise my judgments. But when you are alleging caste bias, things take a different turn.”
The Court also took note of one of Vanchinathan’s interviews, where he reportedly stated that a Brahmin senior advocate had intentionally targeted another lawyer because the latter belonged to the Dalit community.
Justice Swaminathan was deeply concerned by such broad and unproven statements being made publicly.
He said:
“For four years, you have been slandering me. I have not taken any action against you. We are also conscious of the rules of procedure. We are not fools. We will place the case before the Chief Justice or an appropriate bench. The whole ecosystem has ganged up—we are aware. We will not be intimidated or cowed down. Judicial independence is supreme.”
The Court’s written order recorded that Advocate Vanchinathan had personally appeared before the Court on both July 25 and July 28.
It mentioned that Vanchinathan seemed to believe that the current proceedings were connected to a complaint he had made earlier to the Chief Justice of India and other judges of the Supreme Court.
However, the Court firmly denied any such link. The order clearly stated:
“We fail to understand on what basis such allegations have been made against this Court…We clarify once again that the proceedings against him have nothing to do with that complaint.”
The judges explained that since various interviews given by Vanchinathan were going around on social media, accusing one of the judges of casteist behaviour, the Court was simply trying to follow the basic principles of natural justice by asking him to clarify his statements.
The Court told him:
“You have assumed two things that have no basis. First, this has nothing to do with the complaint you sent to the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India. Second, we have not initiated any contempt action till Friday. We only want to clarify your stance—whether you continue to allege caste and communal bias.”
Meanwhile, eight retired judges of the Madras High Court – Justice K Chandru, Justice D Hariparanthaman, Justice CT Selvam, Justice Akbar Ali, Justice P Kalaiyarasan, Justice S Vimala, Justice KK Sasidharan, and Justice SS Sundar – sent a letter to the Chief Justice of India asking him to step in.
They said that any complaint regarding judicial conduct should be looked into by the Chief Justice and not directly handled by the judge involved in the complaint. Referring to their intervention, the Court observed:
“While this matter is pending, it is most unfortunate that some retired judges are rendering opinions.”
Justice Swaminathan was particularly disheartened by the involvement of Justice SS Sundar, one of the retired judges who signed the letter. He expressed his disappointment openly in the courtroom.
At the end of the hearing, the Bench ordered that the case be sent to the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court for further action.
Before the proceedings ended, Justice Swaminathan made a final remark to Vanchinathan, expressing no regret over his earlier comments:
“I regretted calling you a coward. Now I do not regret at all.”
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