Markandey Katju J. has been asked to appear in the Supreme Court

It was a regular day in Justice Ranjan Gogoi’s courtroom. The Supreme Court of India’s Gogoi, Prafulla C Pant and UU Lalit JJ, were hearing a review of the Soumya judgment; it was just a regular day. Until it wasn’t.

Justice Gogoi had insisted that the Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi (who appeared for the State of Kerala) and senior counsel Siddharth Luthra (who appeared for Soumya’s mother) be heard in finality today.

It was not a request one would read too much into.

But no one could have predicted the shocker that Justice Gogoi would deliver next. On the completion of the arguments, in a calm and composed manner, the judge opined that the Bench would not like to comment on the matter at the moment.

Instead, he reproduced a post written by former judge, Justice Markandey Katju, who had opined that the matter deserved an open court hearing. In the same post, Katju J also wrote that the Soumya judgment had been pronounced without careful consideration of the law on circumstantial evidence.

Justice Ranjan Gogoi went on to note that the views of a former judge deserved the most respectful consideration. Consequently, he directed that the post be turned into a suo motu petition and a returnable notice be served on Katju, for him to attend the next hearing scheduled for November 11, and present his views on the issue.

It has been a while since the retired Justice Katju has been discussed in the Supreme Court’s courtrooms, at least openly. Two years ago, the Parliament of India had condemned the judge for his posts about Mahatma Gandhi and Subhash Chandra Bose prompting him to move the Supreme Court to quash the same. That was in August of 2015.

Since then, a number of Justice Katju’s blogposts have specifically targeted sitting and retired judges. As Murali Krishnan asked in the recent column, the obvious question is why has the top court remained silent for so long. Perhaps, just perhaps, it will remain silent no more.

The matter will now be heard on November 11 this year.