More than 600 lawyers wrote to CJI Chandrachud: alarm on threats to the integrity of judiciary

More than 600 Indian lawyers have expressed their concerns about what they perceive to be an assault on the independence of the Indian court in a letter to Chief Justice DY Chandrachud. 

Among these lawyers are well-known advocates Harish Salve and Manan Kumar Mishra, who chairs the Bar Council of India. The attorneys chastised the "vested interest group" for attempting to discredit the courts with baseless allegations and self-serving agendas in an attempt to sway court decisions and procedural practices.

According to the letter, these strategies are particularly obvious when political personalities are the target of accusations of wrongdoing. This is because efforts to tamper with court decisions and discredit the justice system have recently received more scrutiny.

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Among the many troubling tactics mentioned in the letter is the purported creation of misleading narratives in order to offer an inaccurate portrayal of the functioning of the judiciary. Some have compared these stories to an imaginary "golden age" of upper-class living. The lawyers claimed that the stories were written with the intention of influencing the decisions of judges and destroying public faith in the justice system.

The letter extensively discussed the "concocted theory of bench fixing," which refers to the effort to influence judges' decisions and cast doubt on their honesty. An overwhelming majority of lawyers feel these acts undermined basic principles of fairness and lawfulness, in addition to being rude and unprofessional.