'Courts Not For Religious Ideas': Senior Advocate On Attack On Chief Justice

Former Attorney-General of India and senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi has strongly condemned the recent incident inside the Supreme Court where a lawyer allegedly threw a shoe at Chief Justice of India BR Gavai, and said that "courts of law are not meant to propagate religious ideas."

Speaking to NDTV, Rohatgi said it was "unfortunate that this is a case of a lawyer and not a disgruntled litigant who may have been facing a trial for the last 20 years or something."

"It seems to me that he is either a religious fanatic who seems to have been carried away by some observation made by the Chief Justice in some case about a month ago, or he is using the court as a political platform or a religious platform to propagate his views about some religion," Rohatgi said.

"It's unfortunately a case of a lawyer who has just come in and started throwing a shoe at him and I was told that when he was walking out of the court, he was saying something that there should be nothing against Sanatan Dharma etc. Certainly, this so-called expression of religion or something like that is completely unacceptable in a court of law. Whether it is by a lawyer or by somebody else. Courts of law are not meant to propagate religious ideas," he added.

#TheSouthernView with @Vasudha156 and @TMVRaghav | "Courts of law are not meant to propagate religious ideas": Former Attorney-General of India Mukul Rohatgi speaks to NDTV on the attempted attack on CJI B.R. Gavai pic.twitter.com/eFWYAuB6rN

— NDTV (@ndtv) October 7, 2025

Calling the act "completely unpardonable," Rohatgi said, "It is the grossest form of criminal contempt as defined by law. It attracts a punishment of six months."

He also recalled past incidents of violence inside the Supreme Court. "It happens once every 20 years. I remember it happening about 20 years ago. Many years ago, maybe 15 or 16 years ago, somebody tried to attack a judge on the dais in the Supreme Court with a knife. Therefore, one has to be vigilant and security has to be tight so that such disgruntled elements do not get their way," he said.

When asked if forgiving the attacker was the right move, Rohatgi said he felt "there should have been exemplary punishment," but acknowledged that the Chief Justice's decision reflected "maturity."

"Probably in his career, he would have seen many either disgruntled litigants or lawyers or other people who are unable to think rationally. So apparently, he did not decide to take any action," he said.

Congress MP and senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi also condemned the attack on the Chief Justice of India, and said that the incident strikes at the very foundation of the judiciary.

"Look, I don't think we must go into too much of psychoanalysis because the first point I wish to make is that it is not about an individual, about Judge A, Judge B, Chief Justice X, Chief Justice Y. It is about the very institution of a third pillar of democracy. And that symbolism is very serious when you attack it at the base. So it must be condemned unequivocally, universally, without ifs and buts, without ideology, without any conditionality because it strikes at the root of the very concept of holding this institution above all kinds of partisan issues and politics. That's the larger issue," Singhvi said.

He further said the act was "inexcusable" for a lawyer. "The second thing is that it is bad enough and terrible for any human being to do it. But according to me, it's inexcusable in any manner for a lawyer to even think of doing it. Lawyers should never identify with a cause or an issue beyond their professional, you know, obligation. And you represent a person or an entity and you have to stop. And that's why there are all these rules and regulations about lawyers. So I think that really compounds the felony 100 times over."

Notably, in a breach of decorum, the elderly lawyer threw a shoe at the Chief Justice during a court proceeding. The shoe did not reach the bench, and the man was caught and escorted out by security personnel present in the court.

The lawyer, Rakesh Kishore, was suspended by the Bar Council of India (BCI) hours after the incident.

Kishore, meanwhile, justified his action and said that he was hurt by the Chief Justice's remarks during the hearing of a plea seeking restoration of the structure of Lord Vishnu in the Javari temple in Madhya Pradesh's Khajuraho.

"I did not do it; God did. The Chief Justice of India mocked Sanatan Dharma. This was the Almighty's order, a reaction to an action," he said.