Justice V Srishananda of Karnataka High Court expresses regret for controversial comments

Karnataka High Court judge Justice V Srishananda, who found himself in the eye of a storm following two video clips from his court hearings that show him making inappropriate comments, expressed regret for his actions and words on Saturday.

Justice Srishananda called members of the Advocates Association, Bengaluru and senior members of the Bar to his courtroom at 2:30 PM today to read out a note expressing regret for the unsavoury comments.

“He said that he regretted having made those comments and that it was not his intention to hurt any particular community or, any members of the Bar. These were his exact words. He also told us to convey this to all members of the Bar,” said Association President Vivek Subba Reddy.

“We also told him to henceforth encourage young lawyers in his courtroom, and to not divert to any other issues during hearings,” Reddy told Bar & Bench.

According to another senior member of the Bar who was present in the courtroom at the time, Justice Srishananda also asked lawyers to convey the message to the woman lawyer, whom he was seen reprimanding in one of the videos.

“He said that his comments were not meant to target the woman lawyer. She was representing the appellant and what he had meant was that the appellant seemed to know a lot about the other party,” the advocate said.

Those present in the courtroom at the time revealed that Justice Srishananda also said that he would not make any such comments in future.

On September 19, a video clip of a hearing conducted by Justice Srishananda on August 28 was circulated on social media where the judge can be seen referring to a Muslim dominated sub-locality in west Bengaluru as 'Pakistan'.

Hours later, another video from the same courtroom came to light, in which Justice Srishananda can be seen making a gender insensitive comment.

The following day, a Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, Surya Kant and Hrishikesh Roy took suo motu cognisance of the incidents and sought a report from the Karnataka High Court Registrar General on the same.