AHV criticises BJP leaders’ remarks on judges

BJP MLC A H Vishwanath criticised his own party leaders, over their recent comments on judges, who have been issuing instructions to the governments on managing the Covid crisis.

Speaking to media persons here, on Friday, he said, “Every citizen is bound by law and it is not proper to criticise the systems that we have accepted and adopted, in a democracy.”

He was referring to the recent comments by BJP general secretary C T Ravi and Union Minister D V Sadananda Gowda on the judiciary and judges.

“Sadananda Gowda is a Union Cabinet Minister. If he asks, ‘Tomorrow if the Court tells us to vaccinate people and if sufficient doses are not manufactured, should we hang ourselves?’, it implies that the Union government should hang itself. Ravi said, ‘The judges are not omniscient’. Both have committed contempt of court,” said Vishwanath, whose journey was from the Congress, via the JD(S), to the BJP.

He said, “The honour of Mysuru was safeguarded by the judicial inquiry into the death of 24 persons in Chamarajanagar district hospital, due to unavailability of oxygen. If it was an inquiry by an officer, the truth, that Mysuru is not responsible for the lapse, would not have been unearthed.”

“The neighbouring Andhra Pradesh government has issued a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to the families of those who died due to shortage of oxygen. The High Court Committee has directed the government to issue a compensation on Tuesday itself. But, so far, there is no progress on this front. The Jaganmohan Reddy government should serve as a model for the B S Yediyurappa government,” Vishwanath said.