Thirteen of the twenty-one members of the Executive Committee of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) have distanced themselves from the response of the SCBA President, Secretary and Vice President with regard to Senior Advocate Dushyant Dave’s recent remarks against Chief Justice Dipak Misra.

In a statement signed by the thirteen members including Treasurer Meenesh Kumar Dubey and Joint Secretary Rahul Kaushik, they have expressed their “shock” at the response by the President, the Secretary and the Vice President.

“The undersigned Executive Committee members of the SCBA are shocked at the response sent by the President, Vice President and Secretary dated 28.09.2017 condemning inter alia statements attributed to Mr. Dushyant Dave concerning the Chief Justice of India.”

The statement goes on to state that the response was issued without holding a meeting of the Executive Committee, and without deliberating on the issue.

“Accordingly, we condemn the unilateral action of the above office bearers bypassing the SCBA EC members. We disassociate with the said response issued by the above said office bearers which may be treated as issued in their personal capacity.”

In a discussion on NDTV, Dushyant Dave had stated that “independence of Collegium is only in name” and judges close to the ruling executive have been rewarded earlier too. Dave had then made allegations against CJI Dipak Misra, a move that did not go down well with the BCI and the SCBA. While the BCI had issued a show cause notice to Dave, SCBA had issued a statement condemning Dave’s statements.

It is this statement by SCBA which has now been disowned by thirteen Executive Committee members.

Read the full statement issued by 13 EC members below.