Supreme Court needs collective leadership: Justice Kurian Joseph

New Delhi: Former Supreme Court judge Kurian Joseph on Friday defended his January 12 press conference with three other judges, including Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, saying that he had “consciously” chosen to address the institutional “crisis” over certain “unhealthy practices” and did not regret it in any way.

He clarified that the press conference was less about an individual, but more about system weaknesses, the unhealthy practices which allowed the then CJI, the first among equals, to take decisions on who will decide which case and what should be its composition.

The judges though it was their duty to highlight systemic weaknesses and put in place mechanisms to ensure institutional continuity, he said.


The four judges, which also included Justice Jasti Chelameswar and Madan B. Lokur, had then gone public with their woes in an event unprecedented in the annals of judicial history over the manner in which then Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra was allotting politically-sensitive cases unilaterally to specific junior judges.