"Bitter Truths Must Remain In Memory": Chief Justice On Interviews

Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi retires on Sunday after a tenure of a little over 13 months.

Judges are required to 'maintain' silence while exercising their freedom, outgoing Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi said on his last working day while explaining why he cannot give one-on-one interviews to journalists. Chief Justice Gogoi retires on Sunday after a tenure of a little over 13 months. 

"...while you have the Bar whose members can exercise their freedom of speech to the extent of even pushing the boundaries of such freedom, the Bench requires its judges to 'maintain' silence, while exercising their freedoms," Chief Justice Gogoi, 64, said in a statement. "This is not to say that Judges do not speak. They do speak, but do so only out of functional necessity, and no more. Bitter truths must remain in memory," he added. 

The outgoing Chief Justice sat on the bench for the last time in court number 1 of the Supreme Court on Friday. Court number 1 of the top court is the courtroom of the Chief Justice of India.

"I chose to belong to an institution whose strength lay in public confidence and trust, earned not through good press, but through our work as judges," Chief Justice Gogoi said. 

Chief Justice Gogoi said it is not required of the judges to react out to people through the media. "Rather, such outreach ought to be symbolic of an extraordinary situation, demanding an exception to the norm," he said.

Ranjan Gogoi was among the four sitting top court judges who had held a first-of-its-kind press conference in January  2018 when Dipak Misra was the Chief Justice.  They had alleged selective "assignment of cases to preferred judges" and "sensitive cases were being allotted to junior judges" by Justice Dipak Misra.

Ranjan Gogoi took oath as the 46th Chief Justice of India on October 3 last year, succeeding Justice Dipak Misra. He is the first person from the northeast to become the Chief Justice.