A tense confrontation unfolded in the Gujarat High Court on Friday when Brijesh Trivedi, President of the Gujarat High Court Advocates’ Association (GHCAA), raised his voice in a heated exchange with Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal. The incident took place during the hearing of a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) concerning illegal constructions.
The altercation began when Trivedi, in a raised tone, accused the Chief Justice of not allowing advocates, including Senior Advocates, to complete their arguments.
At one point, Chief Justice Agarwal, attempting to calm the situation, said, “Mr Counsel, please let me complete. I was making some statements. I was asking you something, but you did not allow me to complete my question.”
Trivedi, in response, apologised with a tinge of resentment, saying, “This is not the way a court should decide a pending matter, please allow me to complete my sentence, and understand the question. It was my mistake to have understood the question beforehand and I am sorry for that.”
The outburst from Trivedi did not go unnoticed. Chief Justice Agarwal appeared to look upwards, seemingly lost in thought, while Trivedi continued his verbal barrage.
“This is how your ladyship wants to listen without even permitting the advocates to speak, that is enough, your ladyship may leave the matter, place it before another appropriate bench. This is not how your ladyship should behave, looking somewhere else. My request is to release the matter,” he said.
He further added, “Ladyship is looking at the sky, this has not happened in this court in 65 years.”
In response, Chief Justice Agarwal requested that Trivedi not create a scene or direct his gestures towards the court, to which Trivedi retorted, “It is the other way around.”
As tensions escalated, Trivedi appeared to storm out of the courtroom before returning to make further remarks.
He accused the Chief Justice of being an “overspeaking judge,” claiming that senior lawyers had been “tolerating” her behaviour. “Every senior advocate, advocate of the Court, has been very kind enough to tolerate this. I had in the 2023 year used a nice quotation of Lord Francis Bacon. I don’t want to repeat it. I hope your ladyship remembers that… I am not a judge, it is about an overspeaking judge,” he said.
The quotation Trivedi referred to comes from Lord Francis Bacon’s work, The Essays or Counsels, Civill and Morall; of Judicature, in which Bacon writes, “patience and gravity of hearing is an essential part of justice; and an overspeaking judge is no well-tuned cymbal.”
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