New Delhi: A former judge of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, Justice Rohit Arya joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), on Saturday (July 13), according to a report by Bar and Bench. The move comes three months after Justice Arya’s retirement from service.
The Bar and Bench news report quoted another that said that Justice Arya received his membership from Madhya Pradesh’s BJP chief V.D. Sharma, in a programme at the BJP state office in Bhopal.
“Yes, I have joined the BJP. On Saturday, @BJP4MP invited me to an event/seminar in Bhopal, where I praised three new Criminal laws. During the program, the party members urged me to get associated with the BJP. I was overwhelmed, and I didn’t say no,” LiveLaw quoted him as saying.
“Yes, I have joined the BJP. On Saturday, @BJP4MP invited me to an event/seminar in Bhopal, where I praised three new Criminal laws. During the program, the party members urged me to get associated with the BJP. I was overwhelmed, and I didn’t say no.”: #JusticeRohitArya
Advertisement— Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) July 14, 2024
“My thinking aligns with the philosophy of the BJP, a party that believes in human values,” he told LiveLaw.
According to Bar and Bench, Justice Arya enrolled as an advocate in 1984 and was designated a senior advocate by the Madhya Pradesh high court in 2003. His major practice areas included civil law, commercial law, arbitration, administrative law and service law, to name a few. “He also represented bodies such as the Central Government, State Bank of India, Telecom Department, BSNL, Employees State Insurance Corporation, and Income Tax Department,” the report added.
The former justice has been in the news numerous times in the past for his controversial takes and judgments.
In July 2020, Justice Arya granted bail to a 26-year-old man, accused of molesting a woman, on the condition that he would request her to tie a ‘rakhi’ on him, and that the man would promise to protect her “to the best of his ability for all times to come”. Justice Arya also ordered the man to pay Rs 11,000 to the woman, as a “customary ritual usually offered by brothers to sisters” for Raksha Bandhan, seek her blessings while visiting her with his wife, and bring her a box of sweets. Arya also ordered that the man give Rs 5,000 to the son of the complainant to buy clothes and sweets.
The Supreme Court came down heavily on this judgment: “Using rakhi tying as a condition for bail, transforms a molester into a brother, by a judicial mandate. This is wholly unacceptable, and has the effect of diluting and eroding the offence of sexual harassment. The act perpetrated on the survivor constitutes an offence in law, and is not a minor transgression that can be remedied by way of an apology, rendering community service, tying a rakhi or presenting a gift to the survivor, or even promising to marry her, as the case may be,” the Supreme Court has said, per a report. The apex court further issued a set of guidelines to ensure that subordinate courts avoid passing insensitive bail orders in cases involving sexual violence.
In January 2021, Justice Arya rejected standup comedian Munawar Faruqui’s bail plea for hurting religious sentiments and said that it was the constitutional duty of every citizen “to promote harmony and the spirit of common brotherhood.” Faruqui was arrested, even before his show began, based on what a BJP MLA said he had heard during a rehearsal.
Journalist Mohammed Zubair posted on X that Justice Arya had once “scolded a law school student for drinking water from his bottle in the courtroom, saying it’s not a cafeteria”.
The same judge once scolded a law school student for drinking water from his bottle in the courtroom, saying it’s not a cafeteria. pic.twitter.com/DeIJBglVG2
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Former Justice Arya’s move to the BJP also comes after several instances of judges joining the BJP – both after retiring, and sometimes even resigning from office to do so. Many of these former judges have also made controversial statements and judgments.
At his retirement event at the Calcutta high court on May 20 this year, former Justice Chitta Ranjan Dash said that “he was eager to give more time to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which he had belonged to “since childhood” and continued to be a member of through his judgeship”, as The Wire reported. In October last year, a bench comprising Dash issued a ‘code of conduct’ for adolescent girls to “control their sexual urges” so that they are not deemed “losers” by society. The Supreme Court took exception to this judgment, and said that “writing such judgments is absolutely wrong”.
Former Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay, a former judge of the Calcutta high court – who was to retire in August this year – quit office in March to join the BJP. During his tenure in office, Justice Gangopadhyay had passed several key judgments that pulled up the Trinamool Congress government in the state. Gangopadhyay also said that he was in touch with the BJP before his resignation – suggesting that he was in touch with a political party while in office. This has “raised questions of judicial propriety, independence, and whether there should be a cooling off period for judges before they enter electoral politics”, as The Wire reported.
Two former judges of the Kerala high court joined the BJP in 2021 after their retirement. One of them, former Justice V. Chitambaresh, said that people with the qualities of a Brahmin should always be at the helm of affairs, at a Tamil Brahmin’s Global Meet in July 2019, while still holding office. He also called on the Brahmin community to “agitate” for economic reservation, rather than caste or communal reservation, as Bar and Bench reported.
