When senior advocate Dushyant Dave wrote in a column that every chief justice since 2014 had failed the judiciary, Mishra criticised his “myopic mindset” on BCI letterhead and went on to state: “A closer look reveals that far from failing the Constitution, the Supreme Court under each chief justice since May 2014 has delivered decisions that have affirmed and advanced democratic values, expanded civil liberties, upheld institutional independence, and preserved the foundational principles of our republic.”
Mishra’s statement criticising the protest at Jantar Mantar demanding the resignation of education minister Dharmendra Pradhan mentioned that “certain politicians have foreign blood flowing in their veins”. It treated criticism of the government as hostility to the nation. Stone-pelters were reportedly brought from Jammu and Kashmir. Wild allegations of payments reportedly made, a politician reputedly close to a foreign financier receiving funds, among other claims, were circulated by the BCI. Lawyers criticised Mishra for using the BCI letterhead to express his personal opinions.
Mishra had famously sought a holiday in courts across the country to enable lawyers to attend or witness the consecration of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya in January 2024.
He had also criticised “disgruntled senior advocates” and former judges brought to the fore via ‘social media, electronic media and print media to castigate and scandalise judiciary by imputing baseless motives on the Supreme Court judges’ and for allegedly attacking judicial independence.
As BCI chairman, Mishra also went on record to say that comments made by former Supreme Court judge Madan B. Lokur were “idle talk” against the institution of the apex court and undermined the authority of the judiciary as a whole.
“We have heard Justice Lokur giving sermons that no-one from the Bench and the Bar should ever indulge in act that would shake the faith of the public in judiciary. Now, he himself become part of these misguided group of people is a mind-boggling departure by him of his own much hyped principles,” he had declared in a press release following Justice Lokur’s lament that the court had let down migrant workers forced out of shelter and employment following the Covid lockdown.
The NALSAR episode has now brought these longstanding questions about Mishra’s use of the BCI’s institutional authority back into focus. The controversy is not merely about a direction that was withdrawn within hours; it has revived questions among lawyers about the council’s finances, functioning and the extent to which its chairman uses the institution’s platform to intervene in political and judicial controversies.
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