Supreme Court seeks Centre, Bar’s suggestions to prevent repeat of incidents like shoe-hurl, frame media SOP

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Centre and the Supreme Court Bar Association to suggest measures to prevent recurrence of incidents like the shoe-hurl attempt targeting former CJI B R Gavai in the courtroom.

The court also asked for a standard operating procedure for the media to report on such incidents.

A bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, and senior advocate and SCBA President Vikas Singh, to submit suggestions to it for issuing the guidelines to deal with the issue.

"Solicitor General, Tushar Mehta, and senior advocate and SCBA president jointly state that they will put up joint suggestions recommending preventive measures for these kinds of occurrences, and the protocol to be observed for reporting and publicising such incidents in future," the bench said.

The court waived off the procedural formality of issuing a notice to the Centre and said that the issue was non-adversarial in nature and hence, a common suggestion may be submitted.

On October 6, in a shocking security breach, 71-year-old advocate Rakesh Kishore hurled a shoe towards the CJI in his courtroom, which prompted the Bar Council of India to suspend his licence with immediate effect.

After the incident, the lawyer had sought to justify his act claiming he was deeply hurt by remarks made in Lord Vishnu idol case in September.

CJI B R Gavai, subsequently, said he was shocked with the incident but it was a forgotten chapter.

SCBA, however, filed a plea, seeking contempt action against the lawyer.