New Delhi: Hours after the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president Adish C. Aggarwala wrote a letter to President Droupadi Murmu, urging her to intervene on the recent Supreme Court judgment on the electoral bonds scheme to protect the corporate houses who have funded political parties, the Association’s executive committee has issued a statement dissociating itself from the plea.
Aggarwala’s letter seeking presidential intervention to hold back the top court’s order on the electoral bonds case – an unusual move – came across as an attempt to protect the interests of corporates who have contributed funds to political parties. The highest percentage of corporate donations through the scheme was given to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
As per the orders of the Supreme Court, the State Bank of India has provided all details of the bonds purchased by corporates to the Election Commission of India for public disclosure.
Aggarwala’s seven-page letter written on March 11 said, “Revealing the names of corporates that had contributed to different political parties would render the corporates vulnerable for victimisation.”
“The possibility of them being singled out by those parties that had received less contribution from them, and harassed cannot be ruled out if the names of corporates and their quantum of contributions to various parties are revealed. This will be reneging on the promise given to them while accepting their voluntary contributions.”
His plea to the President’s House to intervene on the Supreme Court’s judgment was to invoke Article 143 of the Constitution which empowers the President to consult the apex court.
The letter, typed on the SCBA letterhead, also claimed that it would shatter “the reputation the nation enjoys in the international arena”.
On March 12, the SCBA executive committee, through a resolution, condemned the move and called it an attempt to undermine the Supreme Court’s authority. SCBA honorary secretary Rohit Pandey, in a written resolution of the committee, said the letter appeared to have been written by Aggarwala in his capacity as the chairman of the Association. “However, it is noticed that below his signature on that letter he has inter alia mentioned his designation as president of the Supreme Court Bar Association.”
“Therefore, it has become expedient for the executive committee of the Supreme Court Bar Association to make it abundantly clear that the members of the committee have neither authorised the president to write any such letter nor do they subscribe to his views as expressed therein.”
The executive committee’s statement, issued on March 12, underlined that the content of Aggarwala’s letter was “an attempt to overreach and undermine the authority of the honourable Supreme Court of India” and they “unequivocally condemn the same.”
Aggarwala was elected to the post in May 2023. Though his letter to the President was to hold back Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud’s judgment on electoral bonds, in December 2023, he was in the news for expressing “utter shock” at former SCBA president and noted lawyer Dushyant Dave’s open letter to CJI Chandrachud over the shifting of cases from one bench to the other.
Ironically, Aggarwala had then requested the CJI and other Supreme Court judges to ignore Dave’s letter, claiming that it was “nothing but self-serving attacks on the independence of the judiciary.”
In the 2014 SCBA elections, he had lost the president’s position to Dave.
In October 2023, he had also hailed CJI Chandrachud’s judgment (as part of a five-judge bench) on same-sex marriage. In June that year, he had sided with the Narendra Modi government’s decision to oppose such marriages in India.
He is also co-author of an adulatory book of the Prime Minister titled Narendra Modi: A Charismatic and Visionary Statesman.
On January 22, he had written a letter to the CJI urging him to avoid passing any adverse orders to lawyers for their non-appearance in the court on January 22, the day of the consecration ceremony at the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
In February, he had written to CJI Chandrachud to take suo motu cognisance of the farmers’ ‘Dilli Chalo’ protest and take action against it. It led as many as 161 members of the SCBA to sign a resolution to remove him for writing the letter.
